Gracies Lucho !

 Luis Enrique - The Ultimate Winner

The world had never seen a side better than Pep Guardiola's Barca. The Xavi-Iniesta-Messi Barca, The Tiki Taka Barca, The Destructive Barca, were few of the adjectives used for defining Pep's magical Barca. 4 seasons , 14 trophies and numerous of beautifully orchestrated matches. The biggest question looming ahead was, Can Barca replicate the same success after Pep's departure? Well, Tito Vilanova was appointed as the head boss after Pep's departure. The same ideologies, tactics and killer instincts. Shadow of despair fell on Barca as Tito was diagnosed with Cancer. He couldn't continue anymore with the club.

Gerrardo Tata Martino was the new manager of Barca. A big responsibility was huddled on his shoulders. He had to carry forward the Barca Legacy. In between Sandro Rosel stepped down as Barca President and Josep Maria Bartomeu was the new Barca president. These three things were possibly the begging of the end of Barca legacy. Martino's Barca failed to replicate the legacy of Guardiola's team. A shadow of discontent fell on the Barca boards, fans, players and everyone associated with the club. The season 2013-2014 ended trophyless. The board had to react and they were solely answerable to the sudden crisis of the Club. Arch Rivals Real won the Champions Trophy and Copa Del Rey (defeating us in the finals). Atletico won the La liga. This further put  pressure on the Barca Board. A prompt and decisive action was to be taken in order to restore things to normalcy. Barca needed back its legacy. The Board had their plans after the summers of 2014.

'Luis Enrique' was the name. The former Barca captain and former Celta De Vigo manager. The Asturian was the successor to Tata Martino. There was tremendous pressure on Luis Enrique to rearrange the shattered Barca. The whole team was a mess after Martino's departure. Luis Enrique took some bold decisions as he decided to sell off Cesc, Valdes, Sanchez etc and signed in Luis Suarez , Rakitic, Rafinha , Ter Stegen and Bravo. Luis has many plans to carry out as a Barca manager. He had plans for everyone. He wanted a Tiki Taka 2.0 system with short passes as well as long balls to exploit opponent's defence. His using of 2 gifted goalies and shifting Leo Messi to his routined RW position worked wonders. Messi had the freedom to play as a false role. Luis Enrique didn't change Pep's ideologies, he just renovated them. Luis Enrique had wonderful results at his disposal by the end of the season. Yes, We were the treble winners. The unstoppable Barca were back. From having a trophyless season, we bounced back to be 'The Greatest' again. Luis Enrique was a magician for us in the bad times of the club. He was our saviour.

Luis Enriqe under his second spell, seemed to have lost his plot a bit. Never the less we still had a good season. We won the domestic double , had an unbeaten streak of 40 games (i guess) , 0-4 drubbing of Real at their home ground were few defining moments of the 15-16 season.

It was his last season at Barca that things went completely wrong for our saviour. We became a predictable side again. A high press often damaged our system and we used to be hapless. Inconsistency hit us in 16-17 season. The team faltered regularly and all started blaming Luis Enrique again. The 4-0 defeat at Parc Des France seemed to inflict a huge mark on Lucho and he decided to step down as Barca manager by the end or the season. The fans were sympathetic to him and so were the players. But Enrique's decision was final. We managed to overturn the 4-0 deficit against PSG and were 'History Makers' as we defeated them 6-1 at Camp Nou. People started believing at Barca again. We were level on points with Madrid until we faltered again against Deportivo and lost 2-0. The league was lost there. We lost to Juve in the Quarter Finals and CL exit was resented by fans. Fans started yelling and Lucho and boos were also hurled at the Barca boss. Fans often criticised him for his poor tactics and poor team selections. Things didn't change as we ended up winning the Copa Del Rey only.

However I don't think that its fair to blame Luis Enrique for one bad season. He came and conquered whole world by arranging the broken pieces of Barca and make them work like a well oiled machine. He gave us great signings and also signed players like Umtitti, Dignes, Denis Suarez, ter Stegen to secure Barca's future. He also gave as a new system and created a good chemistry between the players.

9 trophies in 3 seasons is not bad. Lets hope that our new boss Valverde brings us back on track.

Thank You.