The football revolution that culminated in a mini-miracle Saturday when Paris Saint-Germain won both their first UEFA Champions League and the fabled treble in Munich began when their inspirational coach, Luis Enrique, decided there was absolutely no way he could manage in Paris.
I know because I was in the conversation when he announced, in that “end of the debate” way of his: “The one elite club where I’ll never coach is PSG. … They’re devoted to a ‘superstar culture’ which I will never, ever accept … and I don’t speak French!”
From that lunch we had in the little village where he lives, in the hills of Catalonia overlooking the Mediterranean, only 26 months passed until 19-year-old Senny Mayulu completed the 5-0 rout and gave PSG the biggest Champions League final-winning scoreline in the 70 years of this magnificent competition.
That’s a mini-miracle in itself. There are others.
When Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur interviewed him (a total of three times) about taking over their clubs in summer 2023, he went to speak to them a little grudgingly.
Luis Enrique had told me and my colleagues at ZoomSport Films, while we were preparing to make our documentary with him: “The club which hires me next will really have to want me! They’ll have to understand how I work, what my beliefs are, they’ll have to completely buy into how my teams play … and they’ll have to come here to interview me. Right to my house to persuade me!”
When first Chelsea, then Spurs, told him that they fancied a radical leader — that they were tempted by his CV, his attitudes, the treble he had won with Barcelona and the way he had brought through ultra-young international talents such as Ansu Fati, Pedri and Gavi while with Spain — they also told him that he would have to interview at Chelsea’s Cobham headquarters, then at Spurs Lodge and at Daniel Levy’s place in Switzerland.
“Lucho,” as anyone who knows him well tends to call him, turned up, turned up his nose at what he thought was a very muddled chain of command at Chelsea, was turned down by Spurs because they thought his command of English wasn’t quite enough — but then welcomed PSG to his house.
If you were watching Saturday while PSG wiped the floor with Inter Milan, shredding them with ruthless persistence and dazzling flair, then you’ll have seen a couple of quiet moments amid the hubbub of euphoria on the pitch when Lucho embraced a diminutive, bespectacled man. That was Luis Campos. He’s the 60-year-old Portuguese executive who built the 2016-17 Ligue 1 title-winning Monaco side, having brought Radamel Falcao, Fabinho, João Moutinho and even a young Kylian Mbappé to the Stade Louis II, and who is now PSG’s director of football.
It was he who trekked from the French capital to Catalonia, drove up into the remote, wooded hills where Luis Enrique lived and told him: We are 100 percent devoted to you, to your playing style. We will back you, we will give you total authority over the training ground and the squad, you’ll be able to get rid of who you want, and although there will be budgetary limits, we’ll try back you every single time you want to sign a player — we want you!
Chelsea and Spurs snapped their fingers and expected the Spaniard to come running; PSG were humble enough to drop everything for him. Mini-miracle!
While Queen’s “We Are the Champions” blared out in Munich; as Inter’s players, dejected and devastated, looked on; and as the Paris fans unfurled their homemade tifo depicting the scene from 2015 when Luis Enrique last won the treble, in Berlin with Barcelona, and danced on the pitch with his late daughter Xana, the two men hugged and knew that this was a story of promises fulfilled.
His new Spanish employee immediately contradicted him: We start today. I’m not the kind of man who plans a “project” and keeps telling everyone: “In a few years we’ll be ready to win it.” I haven’t got that mindset and we don’t have the time for that. In this life you try to do the things which are important to you, the things you desire, right away.
Neymar was kicked out, even though Luis Enrique’s family were just a little heartbroken at saying an immediate goodbye to that likeable, Peter Pan scamp who had been so inspirational to the 2015 treble at Barcelona but who, by summer 2023, had become the living embodiment of everything this coach stands against.
Marco Verratti, although Luis Enrique adored him as a person and had loved the way he had played at his prime, was told to find another club, too. Lionel Messi had already decided to quit Paris in search of Miami victories.
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What happened is that with Mbappé gone, Lucho moved Ousmane Dembélé to center forward and things exploded. The Frenchman went to his boss and asked to take the penalties with Mbappé having departed. Luis Enrique didn’t trust his spot-kick talents and let him take only two of the 19 PSG were awarded this season.
But the manager loved his chutzpah, and there was enough in Dembélé’s attitude for him to dare to give the maverick more responsibility of another kind: asking for a huge goal total and telling the former winger that PSG wouldn’t win the Champions League unless he delivered. Responsibility placed with a player who I personally thought was destined to be talented but flaky all his life, who then delivered maximally to prove the Spaniard 100 percent correct.
It’s a decision he presaged at the end of our filming with him. He told us: “Do I think I’ll do things better in the second season? No question about it. The fact that I had a player [Mbappé] who went where he wanted, when he wanted, on the pitch meant that I had no control over some aspects of our game. [In 2024-25] I’ll be in control of everything. Everything. No exceptions.”
Four more trophies later, with PSG completing a clean sweep of French silverware and becoming the most comprehensive winners of the European Cup or Champions League in the entire 70 years of its existence, I think we can say that even if his enemies don’t, he does have an idea.
In fact, all hail my demanding, funny, frenetic, talented, inspirational and sometimes irascible friend. Champion of Europe.
All hail Luis Enrique, king of the impossible.
