“When I took over as national coach, I wanted to see which players were interested in the idea of the team I wanted and had the characteristics to carry it out,” Luis Enrique said on the eve of Spain’s opening Euro 2020 game against Sweden.
“I always wanted to arrive at the Euros with a clear idea of how I wanted to play. Those who adapted well to that idea had a chance to be here. That is these 24.”
All the decisions that Luis Enrique has made since taking over as national coach after World Cup 2018 have been in the service of that “idea” — the experimentation with over 60 players through the three years since, the naming of his squad for this tournament, his choice of staff, his dealing with the media, how every training session is organised and carried out.
Not everyone has always agreed along the way but those players who thought they knew better found themselves watching from outside. Critics who doubted the former Barcelona player and coach have had to change their minds, or at least keep quieter.
Sticking to that “idea”, no matter what, has seen Spain recover from early stumbles in the group stages, then bounce back from individual howlers in their knockout games against Croatia and Switzerland to reach Tuesday’s semi-final against Italy at Wembley.
There is zero chance of Luis Enrique rethinking his plan now.
“The plan for each game is the same: to get the ball and do our thing,” Luis Enrique also said before the tournament. “We always look to create as many chances as possible, try and control the play, and control the counters of the opponent. When we have to defend, (we) high press in their half and win the ball back as close as possible to their goal. That is the game plan — then, there can be different conditions.”
In practice, Luis Enrique has looked to do the same with Spain as when he took over as Barcelona coach in summer 2014. The situation was very similar — a team that had dominated a few years previously through their tiki-taka style was finding it more difficult as opponents defended deeper and deeper.
The solution was to add more “verticality” to the team’s play; getting the ball forward much quicker. This meant the front three of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar taking over as protagonists from the midfield playmakers of Andres Iniesta and Xavi, who had run the team during Pep Guardiola’s time in charge.
With the current Spain team, the evolution has been pushed even further. The guiding principle now is not how long the team hold the ball when they have possession but how quickly they win it back when they lose it. Luis Enrique constantly stresses the importance of his players moving in unison to press opponents and being well-positioned to occupy spaces to stop opposition teams from breaking through them. That is obviously a means of defence — of stopping their rivals — but it is also crucial to Spain’s plan of attack as when they do get the ball, they can more quickly strike against opponents who have not yet had a chance to “park the bus” or get their two walls of defensive structure in place.
Carrying out such a philosophy, getting the team moving together like a machine on and off the ball, requires lots of work on the training ground. Club coaches like Jurgen Klopp or Mauricio Pochettino have time to work on “automatisms” — collective moves that can be practised over and over again until they become second nature to players.
This is much more difficult at international level but Luis Enrique and his coaches have spent each international break in recent years getting their “idea” across to the team. Their mantra is also reinforced by the work of Luis Enrique’s two closest collaborators: physical preparation specialist Rafel Pol and psychologist Joaquin Valdes, with the team as fit and focused as possible to follow the tactical plan of their boss.
There have been moments during these preparations when everything has clicked and Spain have completely steamrolled their opponents. They hammered Croatia 6-0 in his second game in charge and repeated the scoreline against Germany in another Nations League game in November 2020. There have also been regular examples of what happens when the plan does not come off, such as the 1-1 with Greece in March’s World Cup 2022 qualifiers, which meant that many La Roja fans and pundits were not full of optimism or positivity before this tournament started.
Luis Enrique’s faith in his “idea” never wavered and more than anything else, it explains selection decisions that otherwise might look quite strange. He has openly admitted to not picking the best 24 available Spanish players but the 24 who best fit with the vision of how he wanted the team to play. For various reasons — physical and tactical — players such as Sergio Ramos, Iago Aspas, Sergio Canales, Jesus Navas and Nacho Fernandez were out, no matter how angry that made some people.
Instead, Luis Enrique has gone with the players who have the characteristics to fit the “idea” he wants for the team and also the personalities to follow his instructions. Not many pundits would have included Eric Garcia or Robert Sanchez, while others like Pablo Sarabia and Cesar Azpilicueta were themselves surprised to be called back up after long periods without featuring. However, those who were picked were in because they understood the “idea” of their coach better and were able to follow it on the pitch.
Given Spain’s plan for these Euros was based around an “idea” rather than the individual quality of their players, dedicated training-ground time pre-tournament to explain specific tactical elements and rehearse different game situations was always going to be crucial.
Sergio Busquets’ COVID-19 positive test the week before these Euros was therefore even more of a setback. With Busquets sent home to recover and the players self-isolating at the team camp, only individual and fitness training was possible during the build-up to the opener against Sweden. In this situation, Luis Enrique kept changes to a minimum, using eight of the XI from their most recent World Cup qualifier against Kosovo in March. For the second game against Poland, there was just one change. The “idea” remained the same but a second consecutive draw, with only one goal scored, led to much questioning of the tactics and selections.
No amount of outside pressure was going to make the stubborn “seleccionador” second guess himself. Before the third group game against Slovakia, he was asked what the players had been working on to improve at training. He responded that it was not extra finishing practice but more work on how the team could better collectively control all aspects of the game.
“There are things to improve about how we occupy space, stop some transitions, and our pressing can be better,” he said. “It’s true we have to improve in finishing but I cannot guarantee goals. The best we can do is create many chances. To do that we have to do many things well and that is what we focus on.”
The numbers backed this position up. Against Sweden, they had 17 shots at goal, five on target. Against Poland, it was 12 shots, five on target. That translated into an expected goals (xG) of 4.2 and suggested that the goals would soon be flowing. Spain’s actual problem was how Sweden and Poland had been able to create opportunities themselves on the break. So while the “idea” was never going to change, it could be tweaked, especially to give the team a more solid base. “Luis Enrique never wants to listen to anyone else,” says one source. “Sometimes, in the end, he does have to, though.”
So there were four changes in the XI for Slovakia. The headline was the return of Busquets: the player who most understands Luis Enrique’s “idea” and who provided the verticality required. Just as important, though, was Azpilicueta coming in for Marcos Llorente at right-back. This helped Spain to much better “occupy space” and “stop transitions”. If they won the ball back quicker, further up the pitch, Slovakia’s defenders would have no time to prepare. The cork popped out of the Cava bottle, Spain won 5-0, and suddenly, it was clear that this was not the same old sideways-passing team.
After the Slovakia game, Luis Enrique was asked if the result was a “liberation” and preferred to respond that he was most happy as the players would be convinced that if they followed his ideas, they would have the best chance to go far into the tournament.
“We keep insisting on the same footballing ideas to the players and they can see now that we can get clear results, playing the way we want to,” he said. “You can complain about many things in this Spanish team but never that they do not go for the game from minute one to 90. This result strengthens what we are looking to do and comes at the best moment.”
Against Croatia in the last 16, Spain started in the same positive fashion, with Koke and Alvaro Morata having great chances to score before Unai Simon’s howler. They took a while to recover from that blow but soon returned to playing how Luis Enrique wants them to. They had 10 clear chances in the first half — while Croatia had zero shots on target. When Croatia came out to play more positively after the break, Spain used the extra spaces to pick them off and go 3-1 up. Then, after the shock of conceding twice in seven minutes to go to extra time, they bounced back to win 5-3.
After that game, Luis Enrique was most proud of how his “idea” had triumphed. He put the shaky spell when they blew their lead down to a young and inexperienced team having momentarily forgotten to carry out the plan. Their ability to bounce back and win the game in extra time was then because the players had focused again on what he wanted them to do.
“We have many players with less than 10 caps, so it is normal that in a certain moment, they think that they must defend (by) hitting long balls, but the further you hit the ball away, the quicker it returns,” he said. “In contrast, the great lesson from this game was how we defended in the second part of extra time. That is how we should have defended towards the end of the 90 minutes but it was a marvellous lesson as it was rewarded with the victory. This group is so well prepared that they are capable of learning their lesson during a game.”
Against Switzerland in Friday’s quarter-final, Spain again started well and went ahead when Denis Zakaria deflected Jordi Alba’s pot-shot into his own net. But the superbly drilled Swiss had their own plan, both on and off the ball, and another defensive mix-up allowed them to equalise. More frustrating than any individual error was how Spain found it more difficult to win the ball back where they wanted, and therefore generally faced defensive ranks already fixed in position. Remo Freuler’s straight red card allowed them to open up more spaces and 10 of their 12 shots on target came when they were able to make use of the extra man, but the nerves in front of goal in their opening two games reappeared and they kept missing chance after chance.
When the game went to penalties, Luis Enrique left the players to decide who would take the spot kicks themselves. He also trusted in his tight group’s ability to overcome adversity, along with the detailed preparatory work from his staff. Simon redeemed his mistake against Croatia with two tremendous saves, helped by goalkeeping coach Jose Sambade having provided notes on the Swiss penalty takers which were written on the towel he kept in his net.
“We have been 33 days in camp and we’ve been through everything, really; everything possible,” Luis Enrique said afterwards. “I remember a chat with all the players when I told them we would face difficulties. We knew it. If any national team is prepared to overcome adversities, it is ours. If we look back at our games objectively, our first game was great but we didn’t score, the second we couldn’t finish, the third and fourth were works of art, and the fifth we just lacked that fortune in front of goal.”
Each game has brought its own type of drama — sometimes due to circumstances, other times self-imposed — but the “idea” has remained constant.
All through Spain’s rollercoaster tournament, it has been clear that the players have kept their faith in the “idea” of their “mister”. Despite all the travel involved including trips to Copenhagen for the last 16 and Saint Petersburg for the quarter-finals, Luis Enrique and his coaches have kept using each training session to reinforce their tactical idea. Each individual must be very aware of his role, especially which positions to take up on the pitch to help the team with and without the ball.
“We have a very clear idea of each position and what the mister and the staff are looking for,” said Gerard Moreno, who has played wide attack and centre-forward at different moments. “We have this identity in the way we play. Everyone is very clear about what they have to do and that helps.”
Although he has his own clear ideas, Luis Enrique has leant on club relationships, such as those between Manchester City’s Aymeric Laporte, Eric Garcia and Rodri. Even more important is the Barca triangle of Jordi Alba, Busquets and Pedri — which has allowed for the latter, at just 18 years old, to look so comfortable and be so important to the team. Even still, the “idea” is quite different and riskier than at Ronald Koeman’s current Barca side.
“The football we play is quite similar to Barcelona, in that we want to have the ball and link up,” Pedri said last week. “(But) the mister here asks us to press more, and says that sometimes, it is worth taking a risk and losing the ball because, with our pressing, we will win it back easily and catch the opponent out of position.”
Other players are also asked to do different things than they would for their clubs. At Atletico Madrid, Koke generally does not stray far from the centre circle but for Spain, he must rove around a lot more, including pushing forward into the box.
“The coach asks us certain things on the pitch — how to play, how to position ourselves — and we try and adapt to that as quickly as possible,” Koke said after the group stages. “Whoever plays knows the movements very well. We have been training them these past months and these weeks too while preparing for the Euros. You have to listen to the coach, be attentive, and then do what he asks.”
Given how everything with this Spain team revolves around Luis Enrique’s central “idea”, it could even be an advantage that this current generation lacks many world-class individual talents with multiple medals. A regular complaint through the disasters at World Cup 2014, Euro 2016 and then World Cup 2018 was that powerful squad members had too much influence on the coach’s decisions and the team’s style of play. Most of the individuals in this year’s group have far lower profiles. Few have won that much at club level, or even played often in the latter stages of the Champions League.
As a squad, they are hungry to learn and progress, making them much more malleable and amenable to following the idea of their undisputed leader. They are also well aware that expectations before the tournament were not high among Spanish fans and pundits, and were stung by the criticism during the group stages.
As the competition has progressed, each outfield squad member (aside from Leeds centre-back Diego Llorente) has featured at least once. Seventeen of the 21 outfield players have played in three of the five games so far. Some players are fixtures — Simon in goal, Laporte at centre-back, the established midfield trio and Morata up top — but around them, the selections are based a lot around the strengths of the opposition and how individuals have been training; the “conditions” that Luis Enrique regularly mentions. This keeps everyone involved and on their toes. “With Luis Enrique, it is all speculation. None of us knows what the team will be,” said one source close to the squad.
The changes have generally worked really well. Sarabia was a surprise starter against Slovakia, then scored one and set up two of the team’s five goals; ditto Ferran replacing Moreno against Croatia and responding with a goal and assist. Dani Olmo dropped out of the starting team, only to come off the bench against Croatia to provide two key assists in extra time. Mikel Oyarzabal did not feature much in the group stages — then hit the fifth goal against Croatia and converted the decisive penalty against the Swiss. “Whether I play two minutes or the whole game, what we all want is to help this team,” Oyarzabal said after the Croatia game.
One thing that Spain and Italy have in common before their semi-final is that they have by far the most successful club coaches in the tournament. Roberto Mancini has won 13 trophies in club football, including leagues and cups in Italy and England, but Luis Enrique is the only coach at these Euros to have guided a team to a Champions League trophy, or really come anywhere close. Despite winning a treble in his first season in charge at Barca, he has never received anything like the plaudits given to predecessor Guardiola. His “idea” of changing Spain’s focus from midfield to attack was not welcomed by purist local pundits, but he stuck to what he set out to do, and those who have worked with him — up to Messi — often speak of the two former team-mates as equals.
“It is difficult to see a top coach with a national team because normally, these coaches are working day-to-day with a club,” Busquets said over the weekend. “We have that luck and privilege to be able to count here on Luis Enrique. He is developing his idea with his staff, with the players he believes in, with very big ambition, and that is shown on the pitch.”
So while the players in this squad have been fully convinced by Luis Enrique’s idea, many outside the camp have taken longer to be won over.
There are some in Spain, particularly in the capital city, who were always going to struggle to get behind this national coach. His shock free transfer switch from Real Madrid to Barcelona in summer 1996, and subsequent revelling in winning clasicos against his former side as a Barcelona player and coach, has hardened many around the Santiago Bernabeu against him. Even when he had to step away from the job for tragic family reasons in 2019, sympathy from some quarters was lacking. Club icon Ramos being left out of a Spain tournament squad that featured zero Real Madrid players for the first time just cemented long-standing feelings of antipathy.
“Luis Enrique has shown his true face,” tweeted self-proclaimed “mad Madridista” Tomas Roncero of AS the day the list was confirmed. “You cannot name a squad based on your own personal feelings and phobias.”
Media coverage of much of the build-up and then the draws against Sweden and Poland had more to do with the “phobias” of many influential pundits and critics in the Spanish capital. It is also relevant that many of the most senior reporters from the “Bernabeu beat” are covering Spain for the summer. This means the historical tendency to confuse the best interests of Real Madrid and those of the national team has continued. That contributed directly to the super harsh and personal criticism directed at Morata, who many Real fans feel “betrayed” his former club by joining Atletico. Luis Enrique’s strong backing of his player and general combative attitude when dealing with the media has, at times, added to the tension.
“Luis Enrique does not try to make friends; he likes to challenge people in press conferences and does zero interviews,” a source close to the squad told The Athletic early on during these Euros. “No Real Madrid player in the squad has its influence in certain areas of the media. It all affects the atmosphere and if you then do not get good results, well this happens.”
Club-related news around Ramos, Messi and Carlo Ancelotti often pushed the national team off the covers of the big daily sports newspapers during the first week of this tournament. Tennis player Rafael Nadal, motorcycle rider Marc Marquez and golfer Jon Rahm were the focus of Marca front pages in the days after Spain’s draw with Poland, a sign of how interest in Luis Enrique’s side had waned.
The cork popping against Slovakia turned things back around. One AS article pointing out all the current or former Real Madrid players that lay in wait for Luis Enrique has been made to look a little silly as Croatia’s Luka Modric, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, Germany’s Toni Kroos, France’s Karim Benzema and Raphael Varane, and Belgium’s Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard have all fallen by the wayside, leaving even the most die-hard Blancos fan without any other pulls on their allegiances.
The Asturian will never win over a certain section of fans and pundits, in Madrid particularly, but his critics are keeping their heads down now. “Luis Enrique is not the ogre of before,” said Marca’s preview on Friday morning.
This Spain team has also done a lot to connect with the country’s fans — those who were whistling at La Cartuja in Seville have been cheering vociferously through the knockout rounds. The sheer drama of their games so far has also helped. When Vicente del Bosque’s Spain were controlling every aspect of their games while regularly collecting trophies, their efficiency made them more difficult to warm to. Nobody can be unmoved by what Luis Enrique’s team have been through over the last few weeks.
That it is now Italy also helps. Until Iniesta’s goal in South Africa in 2010, the most iconic moment of Spanish World Cup history was Luis Enrique with his shirt bloodied and nose broken after being elbowed by Italy’s Mauro Tassotti at the 1994 tournament in the United States. Nobody should ever really have questioned the Asturian’s commitment to the national team — he had won a gold medal with Spain at the 1992 Olympics, earned 62 senior caps and played at three World Cups and a Euros.
Neither should the “idea” that Luis Enrique had for his team have been doubted. After so much experimentation and preparation, while always sticking to the same way of playing, he has found a team. His players have the characteristics and personalities to carry out what he wants them to do. They are fully convinced of the plan and when they click, they can seem almost unstoppable. When the system breaks down, they have always found a way to put things right again.
This new young team also seems to be taking on characteristics of their “mister” — thriving in adversity, challenging their critics, willing to take risks, enjoying proving people wrong and thrilling in pushing home their advantage when they get one.
Luis Enrique has never courted popularity and will never be a universally loved figure in Spain but if he follows his success in reinventing Barcelona by remaking this Spanish team and winning another international tournament, maybe his ideas about the game might get the recognition they deserve.
(Top photo: Gonzalo Arroyo – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
“I always wanted to arrive at the Euros with a clear idea of how I wanted to play. Those who adapted well to that idea had a chance to be here. That is these 24.”
All the decisions that Luis Enrique has made since taking over as national coach after World Cup 2018 have been in the service of that “idea” — the experimentation with over 60 players through the three years since, the naming of his squad for this tournament, his choice of staff, his dealing with the media, how every training session is organised and carried out.
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Luis Enrique's 'idea' has carried Spain through the fire - The Athletic
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