Leaving aside the results he’s achieved: they are so colossal that they need no commentary. Luis Enrique is already a historic manager of Barça
Let’s talk about the style of play he proposes and, above all, his greatest virtue: his ability to adapt. Between August 2014 and today, his style of play has changed a great deal, but the main characteristic is not so much the magnitude of the change but rather the reasons for them: adapting to the circumstances, whether they were good or bad experiences that occurred in matches, the efficiency of the interrelations of the player or the dynamics that the team or coaching staff were detecting at each step. The most notable aspect of Luis Enrique is that he doesn’t stand still, but constantly moves forward, almost always through trial and error but often based on his knack of understanding what the best options were for his players to progress. Today’s Barça has little in common with the Barça of August 2013, despite being made up of more or less the same players. And the team’s new dynamic can be attributed to Luis Enrique, who has driven part of it and has been able to facilitate the other part that has been generated -as occurs on all teams- by the interplay between the players.
Luis Enrique’s Barça is two teams at the same time. Beyond the fragile emotional state that he inherited after the ill-fated season under Tata Martino, the Barcelona the he took control of a year and a half ago still had an undeniable identity: it could still be referred to as the Midfielder Barça. It was an identity that Luis Enrique questioned with numerous statements: he suggested that Xavi be ready to leave; he chose Rakitic over Kroos; he raised doubts about Iniesta; and he sometimes chose Mascherano over Busquets at DM, which encapsulates everything else just mentioned. The manager seemed to prefer any option over giving priority to the midfielders.
Along with this house brand Midfielder Barça, which at first had a bad time of it, there was another Barça: the Forwards Barça. Three predators who quickly built an intimidating partnership, although as was agreed upon after the crisis in January of 2015 it imposed the continuous presence of all three on the pitch, thereby ostracizing all other attackers.
After the personality clash came to a head and Messi’s hierarchy was accepted over all other priorities and the three predators were allowed to start every match, Luis Enrique’s great merit was to understand that he had two powerful identities within the team, two high impact fortresses, and instead of choosing one in detriment of the other, he figured out to get them to coexist. He figured out how to stitch together a single team around two teams, the midfielders and the forwards. It didn’t even take him that long to achieve this: between six and eight months, a short period if we consider what he was dealing with.
Were there problems and conflicts? Where aren’t there? How can there not be among a group of athletes whose collective interests coincide, but whose individual interests do not? We tend to ignore how decisive the factor of time is in sports, as if we could just snap our fingers and playing systems will magically appear out of the blue. All teams need three essential players: time, time and time.
Luis Enrique quickly adapted a team that had been coming unraveled since the Spring of 2012, mainly because of individual reasons. It was still a Barça that resembled the great Barça, but its symphonies now sounded more modest. And things did not change simply because Luis Enrique imposed discipline, intensity, aggressiveness or energy. That was the easy part. He tried many things and made many mistakes, a sign of intelligence. He pushed the FBs forward, pinched in the forwards, spread out the CMs, he endured a few collapses, struggled through defective transitions, suffered losses, imposed his ideas beyond what was prudent and stepped on the identities. He was also able to detect his mistakes and correct them, adding them to a long list of successful decisions. All this led to a new style in which both of the teams that existed within the team could coexist, with the help of a single glue player: Dani Alves. Alves started Luis Enrique’s first season out of control, converted into a disorganized winger. But as the manager gradually tweaked his approaches Alves became the hinge that held together the two teams, the midfielders and the forwards. He did it from the position of interior CM, where he was positioned most of the time given the dominating style of play that Barça usually employed. It was often unclear whether Alves was a full back, winger or midfielder. In reality, he was none of the above: he was the glue. On one side, the Midfielder Team built its play around Busquets as the axis and Iniesta as the guarantee of continuing play. On the other side, the predators waited, detached further up the pitch, stalking like leopards, muttering like someone waiting for a train. Busquets and Iniesta drove the train and started arriving on time to their meetings with the predators because Alves took care of accelerating the pace of play, or slowing it down if it split apart; he was the waiter for the three up top, without forgetting that he continued to belong to the class below.
Luis Enrique figured out how to construct this peculiar ecosystem that sometimes suffered unexpectedly or did not manage to completely impose its dominance on the pitch, but which always ended up knocking out the opponent, until it achieved the glory of the triplete. And it’s back in the same position as last season. He has managed to work around the less focused start to the season--inevitable after the hangover of so many victories, the lack of new signings and the injuries to Messi and Rafinha-- without the two teams that coexist in the team coming apart or fading. Busquets and Iniesta continue putting their stamp on all the mail that passes through their hands and the three predators continue muttering as they wait for the train. However, now there are two glue players, Alves has been joined by Sergi Roberto –another Luis Enrique success. Roberto’s is not a full back, winger or midfielder, he’s a little bit of everything, the water carrier for both teams, the essential glue holding the two parts together.
Every now and then Luis Enrique plays Mascherano at DM again, but it almost feels like he does it ironically; and Barça once again sometimes suffers in transitions because it is inevitable to make mistakes on occasion. But the team built around the two teams is again operating with the precision of last season. The Midfielder Team regulates the rhythms and moves the train so that the Forward Team can accelerate toward the inevitable. Around the midfielders and forwards moves Dani Alves or Sergi Roberto, glue in hand, making sure everything sticks together as Luis Enrique indicates.
Luis Enrique is a formidable manager that has figured out how to facilitate everything that his players need to perform a their peaks, which is the greatest virtue any coach can have.
