Football Espana
·25 September 2024
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Yahoo sportsFootball Espana
·25 September 2024
Former treble-winning Barcelona manager Luis Enrique was full of praise for his former teammate Xavi Hernandez when the pair met in the Champions League last season. Yet the current Paris Saint-Germain boss revealed his true thoughts behind closed doors, as was seen in a documentary about him ‘You’ve no f***ing clue.’
The ex-Spain manager divides opinions in his native country, but has always held a soft spot for the Blaugrana, who he captained after leaving Real Madrid. During their clash with Barcelona last season, Luis Enrique told his players that they should be able to beat them easily in the Round of 16.
“Barca is not a dominant team and it is not a defensively good team. They do not have defensive quality,” the Asturian remarked, as recounted by Diario AS.
Xavi received a large amount of criticism due to the style of play of his Barcelona side, and Luis Enrique was amongst them.
“They play long balls. Ter Stegen broke the record for long passes. “They play like Eibar,”
This will be particularly jarring for Xavi to hear, as publicly he called him ‘the perfect manager for Barcelona’. The two aren’t necessarily incompatible, but given Xavi and Luis Enrique hold themselves to a certain style of football, it shows that the latter doesn’t think much of Xavi’s work on the training ground.