Barcelona in the final? For Enrique, it would have been "the worst thing ever"
Before Luis Enrique's PSG debut in the Champions League, he was already nervous about the first semi-final. However, the loss of his beloved club, Barcelona, also had a positive side for him.
Will he get it back? Luis Enrique with the trophy in 2015, with Marc-André ter Stegen on the left. imago/Moritz Müller
Unlike Paris Saint-Germain,Luis Enrique knows what it feels like to be a Champions League winner. In 2015, he won the trophy as a coach with FC Barcelona, including exceptional players such as Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar. The 55-year-old from Gijon also enjoyed great success with the Catalans as a player, winning the Spanish league title twice between 1992 and 1998 and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1997.
What perhaps not everyone remembers: Enrique moved from arch-rivals Real Madrid to the Blaugrana in the summer of 1992, and even during his five years with the Royal Club, he won several trophies. But he found happiness in Barcelona, as his comments on Wednesday evening after the 2-1 win against Arsenal confirmed. "If I'm honest, playing against Barca in a Champions League final would have been the worst thing for me—the worst thing ever," he admitted his inner conflict. "If we hadn't been there, I would have loved for them to have played in the final and won it."
Enrique is still a little baffled by the fact that things turned out differently for Barcelona in the now legendary duels against Inter Milan ; he even found it "a bit strange." He added: "They scored six goals in the semifinals, they showed with their style what kind of football they play. And I think they deserved to be in the final."
When the final kicks off in Munich at 9 p.m. on May 31, Enrique will be the only Barcelona fan present – one who hopes that at least people in his old homeland will be happy for him. "I know that PSG doesn't generate much sympathy in Barcelona," he finally pointed out.
Of course, he also has the PSG fans in mind, who were extremely critical of their own club for years. However, Paris has now developed into a club where not just individual stars shine, but the entire team, as goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma emphasized . "I think this club deserves to win the Champions League. And the fans have deserved it for a long time," Enrique said.
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