Luis Enrique Martínez, 52 years old, and 15 years of experience on the bench, is running to coach Chelsea next season. The Asturian coach met yesterday in London with the blue club to present his sports project and, if necessary, join the Stamford Bridge bench. However, Chelsea prefers an old man known as Frank Lampard as a bridge coach until the end of the season, according to what the English media reported yesterday, who took his reinstatement for granted. Luis Enrique's option for the future is gaining strength... although he will have a tough rival in the German Julian Nagelsmann, fired from Bayern a few days ago, and who sounded like the first option.
Luis Enrique traveled to London yesterday morning to negotiate his incorporation into the English club, accompanied by his friend and agent Iván de la Peña and his son Pacho. In the middle of the afternoon he returned to the Barcelona airport.
In the meeting with the blues leaders, Luis Enrique explained his attractive project to promote young talents –as evidenced in the Spanish team he led in the World Cup–, as well as his game plan based on high pressure and intensity. The Chelsea managers would have liked the proposal, who, however, took a swerve and prefer to try to save the season with a house coach, former player Frank Lampard, who has already led the team for a year and a half (July 2019 to January 2021) and get to know the club and part of the squad.
So Bruno Saltor, interim coach since Graham Potter was sacked on Sunday, will cede the bench to Lampard this Saturday at the Wolves field. The former midfielder is the third blue coach in two years, since he was fired; Tuchel and Potter succeeded him.
In this way, the incorporation of Lampard frustrates the fourth stage of Luis Enrique as club coach (after Roma, Celta and Barça) and the most morbid debut that he could have as a blue coach, in the visit to Real Madrid on Tuesday in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. Without a doubt, the Bernabéu is the setting where the Asturian coach is most hated, who was a white player (from 1991 to 1996) before signing for Barça in 1996.
Thus, Luis Enrique will continue unemployed. Since the Spanish Football Federation announced on December 8 that it was not renewing him as coach after the World Cup elimination against Morocco in the round of 16, the Spaniard had taken a period of reflection and had begun to plan his future, prioritizing training in the Premier League.
His original idea, as he himself expressed in Ser Gijón a few days ago, was to start a project from scratch next season. However, events precipitated with Potter's dismissal on Sunday, which made the Asturian rethink his plan and travel to London.
The possibility of taking charge of a very powerful squad, full of stars (the most reinforced in the world, with nine players for 400 million euros in the winter market) and the challenge of raising a poorly performing team were enough arguments for Luis Enrique to accept the bid and try to convince Todd Boehly (49), the American co-owner of Chelsea.
If, after Lampard's internship, Chelsea decides to hand over command to Luis Enrique, the Spaniard will have a daunting task: to turn what is now a mere collection of international stars without any collective meaning into a cohesive, solid and competitive team.
Chelsea is 11th in the Premier, 33 points behind the leader, but 11 of the last places that give access to the Champions League (they are occupied by Newcastle and Tottenham), so it is feasible to save the course. He could also do it in Europe, but for this he would have to eliminate the current champion.
