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If you are a fan of the Spanish national soccer team, the 5-1, Friday the 13th, annihilation of the Furia Roja at the hands of the Dutch was about the worst possible nightmare start you could have imagined for the reigning world champs in Brazil. I can tell you that in my house — where three of the four of us hold Spanish passports and four of four of us have reveled in the past six years of unprecedented Spanish footballing success —  "'Oranje' is the new black." 

I met up with a handful of passionate soccer colleagues in a local Kansas City establishment that was filled to the brim with Dutch fans. It wasn't pretty for me starting at about minute 44, when Piqué's hips — unlike those of his better half Shakira — did in fact lie and he was unable to hold his defensive line. Robin van Persie was on side for an iconic header that sailed over the helpless Spanish keeper, Iker Casillas, and into the net for the equalizer. 

And things just got uglier for Spanish fans from there. The Dutch sunk the Spanish Armada in the cruelest of cathartic manners — with four more goals in a second-half drubbing that will not soon be forgotten. 

First things first though: the Dutch were better on Friday, much better. They deserved the three points earned for their efforts and are now clearly the favorites in group B. As a staunch Spanish supporter, I am looking to the past to ask myself if the media has been right to announce the death throes of the Spanish trademark Tiki-taka (heavy on the passing) playing style. This World Cup is likely to answer this question definitively. 

Over the past year throughout the major soccer club circuit we've heard this regularly: that teams like Barcelona and Bayern-Munich would be wise to abandon the tiki-taka style in favor of the sexier style of the moment — the counter attack in an instant — embraced by clubs like Chelsea and Real Madrid. And this is where I return to the Spanish national side to find one player, squarely at this intersection between the two competing soccer styles, who perhaps holds the answer to the World Cup question: Sergio Ramos.

Your initial response may be: What does a central defender for both Spain's national team and Real Madrid have to do with a question dealing with the shifting attacking styles of soccer? Quite a bit, in my opinion. Turn the calendar back to April 25, 2012 when Real Madrid met Bayern Munich in the semifinals of the UEFA Champion's League at Madrid's Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. The match went into extra time at an aggregate 3-3 score and eventually to a penalty kick shootout. In a back and forth affair, it was Ramos' grossly errant penalty shot attempt which skied over the cross bar in a manner that made Italian legend Roberto Baggio's high miss at the World Cup back in 1994 look on-frame by comparison, that sealed Madrid's fate. They would not go on to the finals to battle it out for club soccers most sacred trophy.

That was the lowest of low moments for Ramos and it is the moment that most reminds me of what I felt Friday as I saw Spain look pedestrian for the first time in a long, long time. 

But for Ramos, it wasn't the end of the story and, to his credit, he turned this low moment into a steady crescendo of good performances that have led him back to the pinnacle of his profession. He worked as hard the past two seasons as any player on the international scene and, less than two months ago, led his club side back to another semi-final date with Bayern Munich — a team led by former Barcelona boss, Pep Guardiola, who also embraces the tiki-taka style.

A hungry and determined Real Madrid side looking much like the Dutch did on Friday, came at Bayern Munich with fury and none other than Sergio Ramos — the goat of the semi-final two years prior — netted two goals, four minutes apart, during the game's opening 20 minutes. It took the life out of the German attack. When the dust had settled, Madrid won that match 4-0 and advanced to the final where they picked up their much lusted-after tenth UEFA Champion's League trophy. Ramos has recently even been mentioned as a Balon d'Or candidate, the most important honor bestowed annually to the world's best footballer, almost always given to an offensive player not a defender.

Of note: there was another key figure on the opposing side of the pitch for both the 2012 and 2014 Bayern sides, Dutch star Arjen Robben. He played like a man possessed for Holland during Friday's 5-1 Dutch thrashing; like a man who was sick of tiki-taka. 

In soccer, you get beat. It happens. Nobody wins every match they play. You are taught at a young age that, when you fall, you tip your cap to your opponent, congratulate them on a job well done, get back up and prepare for the next encounter in hopes of a different result. I congratulate the Dutch on a job well done on Friday but I'm still bothered that the normally staunch Spanish defense was as horribly porous as they were in that confrontation. 

They were outworked and outplayed by a hungrier Dutch side which played as if it was tired of the old guard. My hope and desire is that the Spanish still feel they have plenty to play for; that they find within themselves what Ramos found between 2012 and 2014, and climb back to a place of respectability regardless of the height of the mountain before them. If they are unable to do this then I feel that yesterday will have been, in fact, a requiem for the tiki-taka. 

Either way, we will learn something during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. During the initial two days of the tournament, it has been the highest scoring World Cup of the past 40-plus years. What happens next is sure to be memorable. Fasten your seatbelts. Tiki-taka is against the ropes. The coming days will speak to its ongoing survival or ultimate demise.

Vargas es el jefe de tecnología "rebelde" de Latino Rebels. Su correo electrónico es:tony@tonytorero.com.