Luis Enrique

[BBZ8800]

Quality of the player, impact on the club, and titles won. Puyol was a great cb, one of the best while he was playing. That, along with his personality and importance to the team as a captain, plus titles, makes him a club legend to me. Lucho was like Alba or Pedro. Good players with a great history in the club, but not legends.

This is obviously my way of seeing things. People can think lucho is a legend, although to me he did not do enough to warrant that title. It kinda makes the word to lose it's meaning, if you consider Cruyff a legend, and then consider lucho one as well.

I don't want to be rude, but you didn't watch Lucho as a player except on youtube, right?

Lucho's impact was like Puyol's.
Guy was a fucking beast and a lion on a field, the only lion in that era (with young Puyol later).
When he was on a field, you always knew, even if we lose: he will give 120%, he will die on a field, he will yell on teammates and force to give them 120%, he will fight with any opponent if he'll attack one of our guys, he'll fight with a referee/opponent's fans/anyone if anyone will give any injustice to our club.
Really, something you can't see in the current Barca, after Puyol's retirement.
Also, as a player, he was quite influental and important in his first 5-6-7 seasons here.
He didn't win a CL, mostly because he didn't have Messi besides him, unlike some of current players from our team, who would never achieve that without Messi.

If I would need to compare him with someone from today in terms of impact and fight, then he was something like Pique, Luis Suarez (when on hot form) or Rakitic (when in his god-mode).
Miles, miles, miles better and more important player than Alba and Pedro.

A video (not for you, for all fans), Lucho/Puyol of that era:

 

[Barcilliant]

I don't want to be rude, but you didn't watch Lucho as a player except on youtube, right?

Lucho's impact was like Puyol's.
Guy was a fucking beast and a lion on a field, the only lion in that era (with young Puyol later).
When he was on a field, you always knew, even if we lose: he will give 120%, he will die on a field, he will yell on teammates and force to give them 120%, he will fight with any opponent if he'll attack one of our guys, he'll fight with a referee/opponent's fans/anyone if anyone will give any injustice to our club.
Really, something you can't see in the current Barca, after Puyol's retirement.
Also, as a player, he was quite influental and important in his first 5-6-7 seasons here.
He didn't win a CL, mostly because he didn't have Messi besides him, unlike some of current players from our team, who would never achieve that without Messi.

If I would need to compare him with someone from today in terms of impact and fight, then he was something like Pique, Luis Suarez (when on hot form) or Rakitic (when in his god-mode).
Miles, miles, miles better and more important player than Alba and Pedro.

A video (not for you, for all fans), Lucho/Puyol of that era:

Agreed. Lucho was/ is a bonafide legend. Unless you lived and saw that era you wouldn't understand. He played a ton of positions and gàve everything for the club.

 

[FlaFCB]

Can't see how a player who was captain here wouldn't be considered a club great.

That's the point people are missing here. I differentiate clubs greats and legends, and said so already. If Lucho is a legend, so is pedro. And if so many are legends, no one really is one.

Eras don't really matter. Cruyff had already established himself as one of the greatest here, long before Xavi or Messi were even born.

Lucho was always considered a sort of a club legend,nothing like a stretch there.May be in a hindsight now it does look like a stretch after the 2003-now era that has raised the bar but when he retired most people considered him a sort of a club legend and was very popular player. He was sort of like Pedro at least. Not in same breath as Pep and surely Crujif but a player who has given us his all on very high level for 8 years coming from RM. You simply can't apply the standard we have now on different times,Lucho was from different times. If you are gonna go this way you can eliminate Pep from being a club legend easily as he wasn't half the player the current crop of Barca midfielders like Xavi,Iniesta,Busquets are |(may be even Deco at his prime and Rakitic if you consider the elevated level of football right now)
Look for it from 2004 perspective not 2017

And to question that he is one of the club greatest coaches is absurd to say at least,sorry gr8 squad or not what he achieved can't be done with bad or limited coaching. And the whole integrating Barca B can be questioned too,Only Grimaldo has proven Lucho wrong. And he tried to integrate Munir & Sandro and both failed badly here.he promoted same number of B players as Pep did in his 1st 3 years. Simple as it is we simply didn't have the quality of youth player right now as we did 8 years ago.

"Sort of" a club legend is not a legend. It's like players with a great history in the club, like pedro. Pep was an important part of cruyff's dream team. His legacy as a player was much bigger than lucho's, also his trophy haul. No comparison there, imo.
And lucho is clearly not interested in integrating youth, not only because of grimaldo. I don't know if he's following orders from barto or what, but that approach has changed since he was appointed coach. And I disagree with you about not being able to win the treble with limited coaching. That's exactly what happened. I honestly think he got lucky after all that drama, and tried a Pep-tito-esque approach, abandoning his ideas. Which are all back now, since last jan 2016, and it's not a coincidence Barça's way of playing deteriorated. People think many players are in a bad form, I think it's all his fault.

 

[Aryagorn]

Lucho was always considered a sort of a club legend,nothing like a stretch there.May be in a hindsight now it does look like a stretch after the 2003-now era that has raised the bar but when he retired most people considered him a sort of a club legend and was very popular player. He was sort of like Pedro at least. Not in same breath as Pep and surely Crujif but a player who has given us his all on very high level for 8 years coming from RM. You simply can't apply the standard we have now on different times,Lucho was from different times. If you are gonna go this way you can eliminate Pep from being a club legend easily as he wasn't half the player the current crop of Barca midfielders like Xavi,Iniesta,Busquets are |(may be even Deco at his prime and Rakitic if you consider the elevated level of football right now)
Look for it from 2004 perspective not 2017

And to question that he is one of the club greatest coaches is absurd to say at least,sorry gr8 squad or not what he achieved can't be done with bad or limited coaching. And the whole integrating Barca B can be questioned too,Only Grimaldo has proven Lucho wrong. And he tried to integrate Munir & Sandro and both failed badly here.he promoted same number of B players as Pep did in his 1st 3 years. Simple as it is we simply didn't have the quality of youth player right now as we did 8 years ago.

Thank you for speaking as is, sir..... especially the integration of B team part

 

[ceco322]

Enrique was good player and now good coach BUT not best. For me have better coaches for our club and philosophy like: 1. Didier Deschamps, 2. Ronald Koeman, 3. Laurent Blanc, 4. Antonio Conte, out there have other good coaches but not good like firsts for now, who closest to our way of play and philosophy and are on level like Enrique (Frank De Boer, Ernesto Valverde, Marcelo Gallardo, Vincenzo Montella, Thomas Tuchel, Rudi Garcia and Gerard Lopez).
P.S. Sorry for my bad English.

 

[FlaFCB]

I don't want to be rude, but you didn't watch Lucho as a player except on youtube, right?

Wrong. I follow Barça since a bit before gaspart's days. Lucho is the embodiement of that era to me. Rakitic is surely not a legend, and Suarez still doesn't have that status to me either.
Disagree a lot on lucho being more important than pedro or alba, it's pretty much the same. And to me lucho was a starter because the team wasn't very good back then. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

And Barça won a cl without Messi, in 2006. Surely there wouldn't be 2 trebles, but the team that was the spine of the spanish nt could definitely win another cl. Lesser teams did.

 

[Dan1983]

I'll never forget his first three years playing for us.

 

[BBZ8800]

Wrong. I follow Barça since a bit before gaspart's days. Lucho is the embodiement of that era to me. Rakitic is surely not a legend, and Suarez still doesn't have that status to me either.
Disagree a lot on lucho being more important than pedro or alba, it's pretty much the same. And to me lucho was a starter because the team wasn't very good back then. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

And Barça won a cl without Messi, in 2006. Surely there wouldn't be 2 trebles, but the team that was the spine of the spanish nt could definitely win another cl. Lesser teams did.

I think that you are slightly mad at late 90s era because we haven't won CL trophies, so you think that the team and players were worse than they actually were...

About Lucho, back then we had stronger midfield than in recent years.
1998/99: Lucho, Figo, Pep, Celades, Cocu, R. DeBoer, Ciric, Luis Garcia, Oscar and Roger, Xavi, Zenden.

1st round of a group phase in 1998/99, we were in a group with Man Utd and Bayern (and Brondby), those two will end as finalists later in that year.
On away game in Manchester (an opening match, lol), Van Gaal decided to play 343 with only 2 full backs and 1 Cb in defense (Reiziger, Abelardo, Sergi):
http://www.worldfootball.net/report/champions-league-1998-1999-gruppe-d-manchester-united-fc-barcelona/
-- midfield was with wingers Figo and Zenden, and with Enrique and Cocu as Cms.
-- 3 attackers were Rivaldo, Anderson and Giovanni

So, Enrique didn't play because our midfield was poor, but because he was "the engine" of our team. We had 3 forwards and 2 wingers behind them (Figo and Zenden), imagine the amount of running which Enrique and Cocu had to cover.
Lucho was something what Rakitic is doing today, covering for the whole team and running for everyone.
Except that Lucho actually had 3-4 times more energy and stamina than Rakitic and a lot more courage and passion.
We had superstars in our team.
We had guys who weren't running too much.
And then, we had guys like Lucho and Cocu...

Here is a video:
http://www.manutd.com/en/News-And-Features/Features/2013/Sep/video-manchester-united-barcelona-champions-league-classic-meeting-1998.aspx

 

[Dan1983]

I've lost all faith in him as our manager after tonight. His cycle is done.

 

[dakt]

Looks like our quality will pull us out of this mess...certainly not Lucho's tactics.

 

[Narto]

Why sub in Paco, and so late as well.. After the first or second red it would've been perfect to play Arda or Rafinha, who both have been much better finishers and creators than Paco.

 

[serghei]

I've lost all faith in him as our manager after tonight. His cycle is done.

I agree. Team is chaotic and it is because the tactics are messed up. Either the players are not listening to him, or he gives them wrong instructions. Either way, he is to blame. It's funny that at HT he realised our RW isn't working, and his brilliant idea was to move Suarez there. I mean how dumb is that? At one point Suarez received in RW and had to serve Messi, and made a mistake on the pass. When it should have been Messi drifting in from the right on his left and finding either Neymar or Suarez, or even going for the shot.

A lot of the times he received the ball centrally and had no angle to shoot, so he had to make some extra moves which resulted in a lot of lost balls. I don't know why he doesn't just stick to the basic and simple formula from 2014-15.

Messi's trademark move is form the right, inside, on his left, where he can go far corner and near corner because of his powerful ankle. When you deprive him of that you are not a great manager.

 

[FC B]

Lucho won't resign by himself so it's imperative he needs to be sacked ! Unfortunately Farto is too stupid and weak to do so !

 

[Chong Li]

He needs to go.

Now.

 

[RevoTeller]

I am not even mad anymore.