History beckons for Luis Enrique. In only his second season in the big seat at FC Barcelona, he's already a shoo-in to retain the Spanish league title. Barça , who face Real Madrid at the Camp Nou in La Liga today, are in imperious form, unbeaten in 39 matches. With only eight games left in the league, the Catalans lead their eternal rivals by 10 points, and Atlético Madrid by nine.
With a cup final date already pencilled in against Sevilla for the end of May, and a quarter-final fixture with Atlético in the Champions League to come next week, it’s possible Enrique could do a double treble, surpassing the achievements of his old Barça team-mate Pep Guardiola, who masterminded the club’s first treble in 2009.
Before becoming Barça ’s manager Enrique’s management career was patchy. He excelled as Barça B coach for a few seasons, taking the reserve team to third in the second division, its highest ever-recorded position.
An adventure in Serie A with AS Roma, however, ended in failure. He was tossed aside at the end of the 2011-2012 season, two years before his contract was due to expire. He was so rattled he took a year’s sabbatical.
Six nervy months
He got back in the saddle in Spain, guiding Celta de Vigo to a credible if uninspiring ninth-place finish (the club lies fifth at present in La Liga) before a summons for the Barça job. Six nervy months ensued. He faced down a Leo Messi-led revolt. His sporting director, Andoni Zubizarreta, was fired. Institutionally, the club was in disarray. The club’s president Josep Maria Bartomeu (who got the job 12 months earlier when his predecessor was forced to resign) called an early, clear-the-air election date for the following summer.
Enrique’s future was in the balance. With the help of the pacifying powers of Xavi Hernández, who was an old teammate until Enrique retired from football in 2004, Enrique managed to get Messi on side. A 3-1 win over Atlético in the league in January 2015 – in which, critically, all three strikers, Messi, Neymar Jr and Luis Suárez, scored – was a turning point in the season. The trophies started rolling in.
Is Enrique a genius or lucky? Barça has a gilded generation of players, which he inherited, including the insatiable Dani Alves, nominally a defender, Andrés Iniesta in midfield, and, of course, Messi in attack.
For a few months in early 2013, while the team's coach, Tito Vilanova, lay in a New York hospital battling against the throat cancer that eventually killed him, some argued the team could run itself. It won the league that season with a tally of 100 points.
Bayern Munich showed up that notion of autogestión, or self-coaching, to be a farce, however, when they drubbed Barça 7-0 on aggregate during that season's Champions League semi-final.
Hump the ball upfield
Enrique has proved himself a salty old sea captain, having made a few key decisions at the tiller. He’s tinkered with the team’s style of play. Gone is the devotion to short, endless rounds of passing in midfield, which often bordered on the narcissistic.
The team isn’t afraid to counter-attack swiftly. It is now acceptable to occasionally hump the ball upfield to the on-running Messi, Neymar Jr or Suárez. The team is more direct, which reflects Enrique’s no-nonsense personality.
The team is better at set-pieces. Significantly, Enrique traded the fey, home-grown talents of Cesc Fàbregas for the more industrious, all-action Ivan Rakitic, a man who has played more this season than any other squad member. The Croat is adept, in particular, at providing an extra shield for Sergio Busquets in the middle third and for Alves when he goes on his forays forward.
Enrique has a canny appreciation for fitness and medical science. He endured hateful criticism for rotating his squad in his first season in charge – both from the media and his own players, especially Messi and Neymar Jr who resented being rested. Now the policy is seen as a virtue.
The case of Iniesta, (31) is instructive. He has been bedevilled by muscle injuries through his career. This season he has never played three consecutive games. He hasn’t togged out for a second-leg of a Copa del Rey tie.
The rest has been invaluable. He hasn’t missed a big game yet, which will be of concern to Real Madrid. He was mesmerising in last November’s clásico at the Bernabéu in Madrid when Barça won 4-0.
Aviva Stadium
It’s notable that the club will forgo its traditional pre-season tour to North America or Asia, which was lucrative but it used to give Guardiola ire during his four-year reign, in favour of a few matches in Europe. This includes a game against Celtic at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium at the end of July.
The club is a pioneer in DNA research. Its doctor, Richard Pruna, uses DNA testing, taking swabs of saliva from players’ mouths, to predict who is likely or unlikely to suffer a muscle injury, and to tailor individual training regimes for each player. Despite the club’s long season of fixtures, which included two super cup finals in August and a FIFA Club World Cup campaign in Japan over the winter, no first-choice player is out injured today.
While the epoch-defining Messi-Neymar-Suárez trident has banged in 107 goals already this season, selflessly providing for each other, Real Madrid's equally thrilling frontline of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale have only played together 11 times this season in the league. The state of Bale's calf muscles have been a sorrowful mystery for madridistas. (See panel.)
What has surprised most about Enrique is the flowering of his man-management skills. He is mule-stubborn, the son of a lorry driver.
He was raised in Gijon, a seaside port in Asturias, a hardy mining region in the northwest of Spain with a rebellious past. Yet he has shown a light touch with Neymar Jr, for example agreeing to release the forward for mid-season holiday flights back to Brazil.
Frigid relationship
His greatest feat is the way he’s got Messi – who had a frigid relationship with previous strike partners such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, David Villa and Alexis Sánchez – to gel with Neymar Jr and Suárez; the trio noddle with each other like a litter of puppies.
Just watch them, say, if Messi scores, which remarkably will be his 500th career goal for club for country.
Enrique may lack the charisma of Guardiola. He is black and white in his worldview, and gruff in media exchanges. His distaste for the limelight, though, is endearing, and was typified by his decision to shun this year’s Ballon d’Or gala at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich in which he inevitably won the best coach award.
His playing CV is impressive. He is one of only a handful of high-profile players to cross the great divide between Real Madrid and Barça.
He lined out in 27 clásico matches as a player, including several against Real Madrid’s manager Zinedine Zidane, scoring six times. One of the goals he scored was while wearing a Real Madrid shirt in a historic 5-0 win in 1995. No doubting, however, where his loyalties will lie tonight.
Richard Fitzpatrick is the author of El Clásico: Barcelona v Real Madrid, Football's Greatest Rivalry, published by Bloomsbury
