Luis Enrique and PSG find out that playing like ‘Barcelona’ remains less important than beating them
Really, Luis Enrique set himself up to fail.
Before their Champions League quarter-final first leg against Barcelona, the Paris Saint-Germain head coach was asked if he or Xavi better fulfilled the Barcelona identity. Luis Enrique was head coach there for three years between 2014 and 2017.
“Me, without any doubt,” he said. “Look at the data, in possession, in scoring chances, in high pressing. Look at the titles, the trophies. It’s not an opinion, it’s data. Without any doubt, me!”
Luis Enrique’s nine pieces of silverware with Barcelona — two La Liga titles, three Copa del Rey trophies, a Supercopa de Espana, a UEFA Super Cup, a Club World Cup and a Champions League — dwarf Xavi’s La Liga and Supercopa de Espana from last season. Luis Enrique might be Barcelona personified, shown by his response to the question referencing style before silverware.
His passion, bordering on obsession, to win in a 4-3-3 attacking style, often with a false nine, has become Luis Enrique’s fatal flaw. Barcelona’s 3-2 win in Paris on Wednesday evening ended PSG’s 27-game unbeaten run, which stretched back to a group-stage away defeat to AC Milan in early November. It was the first time PSG had conceded three times in a home European game since against Manchester United in 2019.
PSG looked more quintessentially Barcelona than Barcelona. Even with a makeshift back four because of injuries (Nordi Mukiele, Presnel Kimpembe) and suspensions (Achraf Hakimi), PSG pressed high, often man-for-man. In possession, they built from the back. Luis Enrique handed Marco Asensio his first European start of the season, deploying him as a false nine, with Kylian Mbappe and former Barcelona forward Ousmane Dembele on the wings.
Comparatively, Barcelona defended in a 4-4-2 mid-block, occasionally pushing to press but happy to sit in their shape. This is shown early on, with PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma on the ball.
They were content to break from deep, and in attack rolled left-winger Raphinha inside to make Xavi’s trademark midfield box. Goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen kicked long. With PSG leaving a three-v-three on halfway, pressing out of something close to a 3-5-2, Barcelona targeted No 9 Robert Lewandowski against Lucas Beraldo.
Here, inside five minutes, Barca get in behind PSG. Lewandowski starts in Beraldo’s blind spot then drops onside, smartly using his body to block the defender when he realises the ball is sailing over his head. Raphinha, who spent a lot of the game in narrow No 10 positions in Barcelona’s box midfield, ran in behind off the back of Lucas Hernandez.
On this occasion, PSG had to thank goalkeeper Donnarumma for his awareness, sprinting out to sweep up and tackle the winger.
It continued throughout the half, with Beraldo fouling Lewandowski on one occasion, such was his difficulty in defending that situation.
Comparatively, PSG were much more intricate. Here is an encapsulation of their first-half attacks — Asensio drops deep, away from centre-back Ronald Araujo, to receive from Beraldo, and links play to Mbappe, one-v-one against Jules Kounde.
Mbappe drives upfield but Kounde matches him stride for stride.
When the France international cuts inside, Kounde and Araujo are close together to block his route(s) to goal so Mbappe has to switch wide to Dembele.
Dembele’s cross is blocked for a corner, but PSG consistently lacked any real box presence. Whenever they were in a promising crossing position down the right, Mbappe often dropped to the edge of the area rather than making a run between the posts or to the back post.
Xavi was full of praise for Barcelona’s defensive quality: “Tactically, we did really, really well. The wingers helped us a lot. Pau Cubarsi jumped so well, first to Lee Kang-in, then sometimes to Asensio. They changed a lot of players (at half-time). We defend so well (against) Mbappe, with Kounde and Araujo”.
“It’s a new Barca, but we are in a good way,” added Xavi. He was speaking about personnel, the integration of teenagers Lamine Yamal and Cubarsi, with the latter part of a back four featuring only one player aged over 25 (Joao Cancelo). The “new Barca” might as well have been about their style, though, as illustrated in The Athletic’s match dashboard below.
This was Barcelona’s lowest possession in a league or European game under Xavi (41.5 per cent) and least territorially dominant when looking at field tilt — their share of total final-third passes in a game. Barcelona went direct more than normal under Xavi and pressed less intensely. They were better for it, even if this failure to fulfil their trademark style has underpinned the animosity towards Xavi that led to his decision to leave at the end of the season.
Their three goals demonstrated Barcelona’s approach: direct and punishing of PSG’s errors. The first was a pinpoint direct ball from Cubarsi into Lewandowski’s feet. He spun off Beraldo, released Yamal out wide and crashed the box for the early outside-of-the-boot cross. When Donnarumma came but failed to clear, Raphinha put in the loose ball.
The PSG goalkeeper played a role in the goal that made it 2-2, when he mishit a diagonal. Cancelo picked it up and within two passes, Barcelona had worked it inside to substitute Gavi. His chip in behind matched Raphinha’s run for a wonderful volleyed equaliser. The winner was an Andreas Christensen header from Ilkay Gundogan’s inswinging corner.
This is a team who won half their 28 La Liga games by a single goal last season, 11 by a 1-0 scoreline. Their direct approach on the ball, and game plan to deny Mbappe space, was reminiscent of PSG’s opponents in their only other home defeat this season — 3-2 against Nice in September.
Mbappe went without a shot on target in a home European game for the first time since September 2021, against Manchester City.
Luis Enrique’s half-time tweaks improved PSG collectively but did not raise Mbappe’s levels. At the back, he switched Marquinhos from right-back to centre-back, to better defend Barcelona’s direct play. Hernandez went from left to right-back, and Beraldo took his place.
He switched Asensio with winger Bradley Barcola, returning to the split-strikers system that worked so well in the round-of-16 second leg away to Real Sociedad — Mbappe and Barcola wide, with Dembele playing a No 10 role.
PSG’s early second-half turnaround owed to increased runners beyond the ball, especially from midfielders, who were disconnected from the front line in the first half. Mbappe overlapped Dembele to find a cutback position in the build-up to the opener, before Dembele fired in.
For the second, just two minutes and 14 seconds after the equaliser, PSG’s system shines. Barcola dribbles inside and Lee overlaps him.
Lee’s positioning pulls Cancelo away from Cubarsi and opens a pocket for Vitinha to make a forward run. Fabian Ruiz finds him, and the midfielder pokes past Ter Stegen.
For a club with the tumultuous recent European history of PSG, making a second-half comeback from 1-0 down and then losing the game is not as shocking as it might be for others. Tactically, they were much better after the half-time changes, but it raises questions over Luis Enrique’s continued efforts to Barcelona-ify PSG. The split-strikers 4-3-1-2 system, even if it is just to be used in Europe, looks better than his preferred 4-3-3.
Luis Enrique might have a better Barcelona record than Xavi, but increasingly needs to prove himself as a knockout coach again. PSG’s Trophee des Champions (France’s super cup) win in January, at home to Toulouse, was the manager’s first silverware since 2017.
If Barcelona’s strength in the Champions League this season has been trying to be less like the Barcelona of the past, then Luis Enrique might benefit from some of that tactical open-mindedness too.
Given that PSG failed to win any of their three away games in the group stage and have been eliminated the last four times they have lost the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie, they would surely benefit from not trying to win like Barcelona in Barcelona.
