Rakitic on the very special Luis Enrique | OneFootball

Ivan Rakitic (38), the former great Croatian midfielder who notably played for FC Barcelona (2014-2020), was in a good position to speak to Canal+ about coach Luis Enrique, whom he knew for 3 years at Barça (2014-2017) and who has been at Paris Saint-Germain since 2023. He explains what makes the difference with the Spaniard, who has won the Champions League with both clubs.

Rakitic: “The dedication he has to his work is really special”

“He’s not just a great coach, he’s a great person. The dedication he has to his work is really special, which is why I’m happy and proud to have spent 3 seasons with him at Barcelona.

What do you remember most about him?

He’s someone special. He is capable of getting the full potential out of his players. He understood that it’s not the best players who make the best team. What matters is what the team needs. That’s where he helped me understand what I had to do for his team. It was very different from what I had to do at Sevilla. That’s the quality of a great coach.

How would you describe his method?

I think it’s 100% passion. He wants the team to be perfect in every area. When you arrive at the training center, breakfast… He wants a perfect machine.

Rakitic: “We didn’t want to go on vacation, because we felt so strong.”

What is his relationship with the players like?

He understands things very well, because you have to realize that in a group there are more than 20 players, all different. And I think Luis’s greatest quality is that he knows how to take the right approach with each person, in a different way.

His greatest success?

Sometimes, after the rain comes the good weather. During the 2014-2015 season, we went through a difficult period in December and January. But from that point on, we really started to understand each other on the pitch and off it, with the staff, with the coach. After the Champions League final in Berlin, we wanted to keep playing. We didn’t want to go on vacation, because we felt so strong.

Rakitic: “That’s the difference between the best teams and the great teams.”

What did he ask of the midfielders?

What was very important was to form triangles. For me, it was Dani Alves and Messi on the right. In the center, there was Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta. That was the key. And when there are automatisms, movements, it all works like a machine. You know whether you need to cover, where your teammate will be.

That’s the difference we see between Paris today and the other teams. All the players in there move like machines. When Vitinha moves out, he knows he’ll be covered. They know what they have to do. That’s the difference between the best teams and the great teams.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.