Wednesday 6 May 2015 11:43, UK
Luis Enrique will be looking to step out of the shadow of Pep Guardiola, writes Adam Bate
Luis Enrique had been anointed. He was the man in the background, mirroring the efforts of the first team with Barcelona B while Pep Guardiola constructed what Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher recently called “the best team any of us have seen” from the front office. Plenty within the club saw a clear lineage from Guardiola via the late Tito Vilanova through to Enrique.
But while Enrique is part of the Barca mythos, the current incumbent in that hottest of seats has a more complex relationship with the club. Born in Gijon, he is Asturian rather than Catalan and had made more than 200 appearances for rivals Real Madrid before setting foot in the Nou Camp for his Barcelona first-team debut.
Even so, every move to escape his destiny only seemed to make the journey back to Barca more inevitable. Having taken a sabbatical upon retirement from playing, Enrique travelled the world. He ran the New York marathon in 3 hours and 14 minutes, the very city Guardiola would make his home when recovering from the mental strain of being Barcelona boss for four sensational seasons.
When Enrique left the bosom of Barca for a third time (he’d been there as a youngster as well as a star player and coach) he went to Italy and to Roma, just as Guardiola had done as a player a decade earlier: Club and international team-mates whose paths seemed self-consciously intertwined.
By the time Enrique made the trip, the trail leading to some of Europe’s most sought-after coaching positions had been blazed by Guardiola’s all-conquering advert for the Barca way. Innocent by association or “uncontaminated” as Roma sporting director Walter Sabatini put it when explaining the decision to turn to Enrique.
“Enrique represents an idea of football that we would like to follow, which imposes itself today through Spain and Barcelona,” said Sabatini. The man himself wasn’t afraid to spell it out. “I haven’t come here to bring the Barcelona model, but something that is similar to it,” said Enrique. “I’m coming here to bring a model by association which takes things from Barcelona but isn’t equal to it.”
Enrique’s Roma were patient but slow, mastering possession if not cohesion. His decision to leave Italy citing “tiredness” echoed Guardiola’s Barca exit but after a season at Celta Vigo, Enrique inherited the real thing. He is the Barca boss now and while Enrique would never admit to rebuilding Guardiola’s Barcelona brick by brick it’s a fairly faithful restoration of those values.
Guardiola's backing
Guardiola himself has backed his old friend to succeed. “Of course he can match me at Barcelona,” he told Sport earlier this season. “I think very highly of him. He will do a better job than I did. It is important for Barcelona to have its own identity again, a philosophy that we all recognise. I think we will see just that under Luis Enrique.”
After a stuttering start, Barca have won 35 of their last 39 games and entertained in the process. In fact, Enrique is in danger of becoming a victim of his own success in facilitating performances reminiscent of the Barcelona that conquered Europe twice in three seasons. After all, Enrique was not around for those triumphs and the resurgent Lionel Messi most certainly was.
This is Messi’s team coached by Luis Enrique
“This is Messi’s team coached by Luis Enrique,” Guillem Balague told Revista de la Liga last week. “What has Luis Enrique added? Fitness certainly, the rotations have been great. And he has worked really hard at direct football that they are able to apply. But now we have gone from Barcelona being a team that plays direct and sometimes controls, to a team that controls and plays direct when they have to. So they have just gone back to a team that suits everybody down to the ground.”
Despite the early season murmurs of a strained relationship with his star player, outwardly the noises from Enrique have been respectful ones. He appears content with – or perhaps resigned to – the likelihood that should his efforts prove successful then they will be framed as a continuation rather than a construction of a dynasty at Barcelona.
Will he get the credit?
So just as Stefan Kovacs, the man who coached Ajax to two of their three consecutive European Cups in the 1970s, is not apportioned with two thirds of the credit for Rinus Michels’ work, Enrique can only hope to get the machine ticking again. And ahead of a Champions League semi-final showdown with Guardiola’s Bayern Munich, reverence is the only option for the glorious homecoming.
“It is a special game because Pep is on the other side,” said Enrique when the draw for the last four was announced. “It will be the first time that he has faced his Barca, it will be the first time that I have faced him as a coach, which will be special for me, and I am sure it will also be for my players.
“He’s the best because he has achieved a vast number of titles, because I love the way he has done it and with an attacking football style wherever he has been. He has been able to adapt to another country and learn a new language, a very difficult language as well, and transmit what he wants.”
It seems Enrique is in no mood to take the focus away from Guardiola ahead of Wednesday’s game. But while it’s the former Barcelona coach who’ll be in the spotlight on his Nou Camp return, the legacy of the current boss is at stake too. A win over the king would be quite the endorsement.
Watch Barcelona v Bayern Munich live on Sky Sports 1 HD from 7.00pm on Wednesday
