The new failure from Spain at the World Cup, another one for the books, has ended the time of Luis Enrique as the head coach for the Spanish National Team.
A time full of intangible successes. A transition period that has almost reached a decade of the eternal promise of coming back based on the new youth, with identical poor results, where we have not made any progress at all.
Another worn out cycle for the regression from our national team where there has been a unique playing style, lack of resources and responses to teams that lock themselves up, and the constant call-up of adept players that do not make any mess.
At ELXIIDEAL I am surrounded my members from Luis Enrique’s fan club. Mates that share his vision, defend it on this media, and who I obviously respect, but I do not agree with at all.
Then it is me. I have never believed in our coach’s approach during his time in charge, as I have kept telling in our debates and articles.
And I am the first one who hates it when Spain fall, as they are my team, even though I do not belong to the irrational support group under any circumstance. As far as I do not agree with the management of the national team, my support will just be emotional.
I consider Luis Enrique a magnificent coach, who has disappointed me a lot in charge of the Spanish National Team due to his unique playing approach that was condemned to failure. We just need to review his time at FC Barcelona in order to strength this argument.
That was a Barça where Luis Enrique shaped the foundations from the most admired and successful ‘Tiki-Taka’ style in history, the one from Guardiola, in order to turn it into a dominator and vertical team that won almost everything. I admired that football because it made sense.
However, no matter how hard I try to, I still do not get his decisions and management at the national team. I do not get why he forces a limited keeper with the ball on his feet to always play it from backwards even when he is pressed by the opponents; I do not get why he does not call up any real central defender who, apart from playing the ball properly, also knows how to defend; I do not get the eternal starting status of Busquets, who has a natural replacement in our league (Zubimendi), nor the absence from our best midfielders at the moment (Mikel Merino, Brais Méndez and Canales); I do not get that we dispense with forwards that can score (Aspas and Borja Iglesias) that could have added a lot. And I already supported this entire argument when coach announced his squad, that I would have radically changed.
And approach wise, I do not get either why we always insist on passing, passing, passing, passing (with no sense), instead of looking for other playing alternatives and probably more effective. Yes indeed, the alternatives were not with us with that precarious call-up.
To wrap up, and even though I am sure that it has not impacted the poor final sporting outcome, I do not get either that a national team head coach goes to ‘stream’ while a game of the competition he is participating at is taking place, no matter that he can watch it later to analyze it. I just do not find it to be normal, despite the fans club from Luis Enrique might consider us to be crazy.
Since we shank back in 2014, Spain have not progressed at all in the final stages of the big tournaments. In fact, the only moment where we actually became competitive and candidates to win, was under coach Lopetegui until it all got spoiled and so we wasted a World Cup, just like we have now.
I do not think that Luis Enrique has any merit at all on anything, neither he has done a decent job. I am aware of the fact that many support his manipulated bracket of the Nations League final stages and the EURO’s semifinals going through extra times and penalties and as second in the group stage against lower teams. Neither to qualify for the World Cup, as if that was not mandatory or as if we had to praise the ordinary.
The reality is that we have won a game out of four at this World Cup against Costa Rica, Germany, Japan and Morocco and so we did im 90 minutes against Slovakia at the EURO. Sorry to leave out the prestigious Nations League. The reality is that we are very far away from the top national teams.
And my opinion is that Luis Enrique has not added absolutely anything during his time in charge at the national team. Let the next coach come in.
Main image: @SEFutbol.
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