Steph Curry revealed that Barcelona’s famous “tiki-taka” style was utilized by the Golden State Warriors to develop an offensive approach that resulted in four NBA titles in eight years.
The NBA legend recently joined fellow superstars LeBron James and Steve Nash in their Mind the Game podcast, where he confessed that Warriors coach Steve Kerr repeatedly showed clips of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona to install a new system when he joined the team ahead of the 2014–15 season.
“Once we got into training camp, he [Kerr] showed a clip of, I can’t remember the soccer club,” Curry said before Nash intervened and named Barcelona. “Tiki-taka, right?,” Curry responded.
“He [Kerr] was talking about that as a philosophy of how we’re going to create shots, how we’re going to, you know, keep things simple, make the defense have to make a million decisions in a possession so you can then find the right shot.”
The philosophy of the Warriors’ offense began with FC Barcelona’s Tiki-Taka principles.@StephenCurry30 explains how Steve Kerr introduced the concept on Part 1 of his guest appearance, out now: https://t.co/HdIN9eJzNE pic.twitter.com/PuLA13geAW
— Mind the Game (@mindthegamepod) November 5, 2025
Curry’s former teammate Klay Thompson also credited Barcelona for the Warriors’ success after the team won the 2022 NBA Finals.
“All credit to Steve [Kerr], he came in and had a vision, just to keep that thing [the ball] hot,” Thompson told Inside the NBA. “He gave us the perfect example, in FC Barcelona they call it tiki-taka. It’s just kick [the ball] to the open man, keep moving.”
With an offense inspired by Barcelona, Curry and the Warriors found tremendous success. He won the NBA MVP award twice and the Warriors became a dynasty, setting the single season record for wins in a season in 2015–16 and conquered four NBA Finals titles between 2015–2022.
The Influence of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona
Between 2008–2012, Guardiola oversaw the most successful era in club history. Winning a treble in his first season, La Liga three times and the Champions League twice in his four-season stint with the club.
Influenced by legendary Barcelona manager Johan Cruyff, Guardiola developed and maximized a possession-based playing style that helped the Catalans dominate European soccer.
Barcelona players also became the core of a Spain national team that won two European championships and the 2010 FIFA World Cup, incorporating Guardiola’s playing style to the international level.
The manager has since gone on to find success elsewhere. Maintaining the same core principles of the playing style, he led Bayern Munich to three straight Bundesliga titles and later Manchester City to win six Premier League championships in eight years, as well as the club’s maiden Champions League triumph.
Guardiola has also influenced a number of younger managers that worked under him over the past decade. The list includes Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta, Chelsea’s Enzo Maresca and Paris Saint-Germain’s Luis Enrique.
But, as Curry revealed, the influence of Guardiola’s tiki-taka style has extended beyond soccer. A testament to the transformative impact it had.
Guardiola left Barcelona over a decade ago, but the mark that team left is everlasting. Unquestionably, one of the greatest soccer team’s in history.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Steph Curry Reveals Soccer Team That Helped Inspire Golden State Warriors Dynasty.
