With a personal and non-transferable style, Luis Enrique faces the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals with the usual vehemence, unconcerned and using pressure as his fuel. In fact, he denied that his team felt it and transformed it into “illusion and ambition.” It is at these moments of the season when the coach, in line with his teams, usually grows. “We are in a great moment of the season, it comes to us at the best mental, physical and football moment,” he dropped to begin. Later, he postulated himself as the best representative of Barça’s football values, above the coach Xavi and without any hesitation. “Look at the statistics, in possession, in high pressure, in titles. I represent him, without a doubt,” he stated.
“I’m sorry to puncture your balloon,” he continued in his reference to the Barça coach, “I don’t know the coach Xavi. I know him as a fan like you. I had him as a teammate with me as captain and I trained him as a coach, but I could only tell you about him as a coach what I see on television.” Luis Enrque did acknowledge that the game will be very special for him. “It is, and a lot in the emotional sphere and I am not yet clear if it is good or bad but I hope it does not affect me with the experience I already have.” The Asturian hopes that it will happen as in some previous situations: “I also had to play against Sporting and I scored goals. My relationship with Barça is one of total love but before everything is my profession. I owe myself to the PSG project. I want to live up to this tie.” There was no shortage of praise for the rival team: “This Barça is not a weak Barça. It is on a good streak, with top-level players and it is a club that has won five Champions Leagues. It will be complicated but very stimulating. “I hope for a healthy rivalry and a great show.”
The Asturian coach, who appeared before the French and Spanish media after directing the last training session of his players at the PSG campus on the outskirts of Paris, already focused on his own after his references to the Barça, always using positivity and irony: “I prefer the first game at home. The atmosphere will be unique, full of enthusiasm and motivation on our part. I know that the fans will help us. It is true that if the return was at home and everything was reversed I would say the opposite. “I don’t like to complain, I like to be positive.” He was also optimistic about the player to relieve suspended right-back Achraf Hakimi. “I have many resources. I make a habit of giving lows a positive reading. I see more opportunity than a problem.”
Luis Enrique has changed things at PSG. His team has gone 27 consecutive games without losing (19 wins, 8 draws). His players gather around him. Qatari managers see in him the guy who will finally, for the first time in history and after years and millions of investments, make them champions of Europe. Luis Enrique talks about it all like this: “We don’t have any pressure, we are very excited. I said it at the beginning of the season, I saw an excess of responsibility and that has been transformed into an excessive ambition at all levels of the club. The club has changed. Legendary players have left and now our players are not Champions League winners. We as a club are unaware of that trophy. But we are ambitious, and we want to beat a great Barça.” In fact, the Asturian rejected the role of favorite: “I prefer to be the victim,” he said.
The tone of the press conference only changed when he was asked about the terrorist threat that hangs over this day’s Champions League matches. “Who in this room isn’t worried about that? I hope it can be controlled and doesn’t end in anything disastrous. Of course it worries.”
