Luis Enrique is innate. If you play for five years for Real Madrid and another eight years for FC Barcelona, to be underestimated in the end, you have to be surprisingly versatile.
To have an understanding of every position of football was considered an outstanding property as more active. Today as a trainer, this understanding will be taken into account as an advantage, because otherwise Enrique would not have so impressively successful in Paris St. Germain.
Finally there is someone who puts the expensive puzzle parts together. This PSG construct, supported by Qatar, has been running after the big goal of Champions League triumph for 14 years. Now before the semi -finals at FC Arsenal (Tuesday, April 29th, from 9 p.m. in the live ticker of the sports show) Enriques Ensemble is one of the top favorites on the Henkelpott.
In a new direction ripe for the title
Since then, the Katar club owners have invested well more than two billion euros in new players. For years, President Nasser Al-Khelaifi spent the many money from his Qatar Sports Investment Fund QSI as if he were sitting in a computer manager game in the capital Doha. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Neymar, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé: Only the name counted.
But before the first semi-final game at FC Arsenal in London, there is a paradoxical way: The ensemble seems to be really ripe for the desired title this season, in which Mbappé also left the club with Mbappé. A functioning collective has become a dysfunctional collection of individualists.
Great praise from PSG president
The Spaniard only had to get the saying with France’s series master. His commitment in 2023 has proven to be a stroke of luck. “For me he is currently the best coach in the world”said Al-Khelaifi after the round of 16 against the Liverpool FC About Enrique.
“He has the vision. He has the plan for the future. That everyone works for everyone, for the victory, for the three points, for the offensive, for the defensive: this is the new style.“The coaching bank preaches intensity.
Return to private tragedy
The pressing and running data serve as an impressive evidence of what Enrique has introduced. Sometimes it is embezzled from his career in the Spanish association what he had to do at the time: As soon as he had taken over from the hapless Fernando Hierro after the drop in the 2018 World Cup in Russia, he suddenly lacked the international matches in spring 2019.
The private reasons soon turned out to be a personal tragedy: a few months later, the football teacher announced that his daughter Xana died of the consequences of a bone tumor. His child’s cancer death at the age of nine threw everything over his pile.
Conflict with Real Madrid
The fact that he still returned returned a lot of recognition. Especially since Enrique did not shy away from conflicts to get his views through. He soon started with Real Madrid when he refrained from “royal” representatives before the European Championship in 2021.
Enrique, which comes from northern Spanish Asturia, knew too well that in Madrid you like to think of the world’s navel. But because the national team at that tournament in the semi -finals against Italy failed in a penalty shootout as at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in the round of 16 against Morocco, the officials no longer wanted to trust him.
Exciting mix tour with highly gifted
He had already introduced an Art Nouveau from which his successor Luis de la Fuente benefited from the 2024 European Championship in Germany. Now he just preaches his credo: “We want players who are hungry.” He sorts out everyone else – even if, like Randal Kolo Muani, they had only been fetched by Eintracht Frankfurt for almost 100 million euros.
The result is an exciting mixture with highly gifted like Désiré Doué and Warren Zaire-Emery, both only 19 years old. Expensive transfers such as the Georgian Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (SSC Naples) or the Portuguese João Neves (Benfica Lisbon) complement each other with former Bundesliga professionals such as Achraf Hakimi (Borussia Dortmund), Willian Pacho (Eintracht Frankfurt), Lucas Hernández (Bavaria Munich) or Ousmane Dembélé (Borussia Dortmund), the latter, in particular, went through the most remarkable change.
The transformation of Ousmane Dembélé
“I have the feeling that I finally found myself”said the attacker recently in the newspaper “Le Parisien“.. “Grew up”. He speaks of one “Learning process” after “very difficult times “ Especially at FC Barcelona.
In September 2022, Dembélé became a daughter. The new playing style and a new role helps him: center forward instead of right -wing. In the premier class and Ligue 1 Dembélé comes to a goal every 94 minutes, by far the best career value – in the previous year it was 491 (!) Minuts. “Ousmane”emphasized coach Luis Enrique, “These are not just goals, it’s much more complicated …”
PSG plays the most intense pressing in Europe, in the extremely running approach he has a key role. However, he did not completely turn off the lack of discipline – Enrique punished him for it when he did not take him into account for the Arsenal game in the preliminary round. Now he should make the difference against the same opponent.
Experts agree: the momentum to win the title for the first time was rarely better than this time. Last achieved PSG In Corona year 2021 the final against Bayern Munich, which curiously decided with Kingsley Coman, a player trained in Paris, for which the club had no use. The trainer at the time was still called Thomas Tuchel.