One of the main protagonists of the Champions League quarter-final tie between Barcelona and PSG will be, without a doubt, Luis Enrique Martínez, the coach of the Parisian team and former coach and former footballer of the Blaugrana team. This Saturday the Asturian made his first assessment of the continental pairing. Luis Enrique was full of praise for the figure of Xavi Hernández, whom he had as a footballer and also as a locker room partner, and he also had good words in relation to the Barcelona squad.
“It's going to be a very difficult tie,” warned Luis Enrique, who highlighted the “individual level” of the rival players. “We knew that the competition would give us a very high-level rival,” said the coach of the Parisian team in the press conference prior to the league match being played this Sunday at Montpellier.
Luis Enrique, who coached Barcelona for three seasons between 2014 and 2017, described his former club as “a very high-level team, a very difficult team, with individual quality at the highest level.”
He also praised Xavi Hernández, who was still a Barça player when he coached Barça, and stressed that after his “great career” as a player he won the Spanish league in his first full season at the helm of the club.
Asked what could be the decisive factor in the tie, which will be played on April 10 and 16, and specifically if the proper name could be Kylian Mbappé, who has accumulated 35 goals and 7 assists in 36 games this season, he He limited himself to saying that “anything can happen.”
As for him, he promised to give 100 percent “so that PSG goes to the next round.”
Luis Enrique said that the four teams in the PSG team have “opportunities to reach the final, but they have to prove it on the field,” so “it is difficult to predict” what may happen.
The other part of the draw, that of Madrid, City, Bayern and Arsenal "is more difficult a priori", since they are "let's say the favorites", he analyzed.
Despite this, he was ambitious about the possibilities of going far in the PSG tournament. “We have a lot of room for improvement, I think we are going to be better. We don't have the Champions League, but we have a lot of ambition to achieve the first one,” he warned.
In the press conference, he also referred to the 2017 round of 16 tie between PSG and Barcelona, when the Parisians won 4-0 in the first leg to lose 6-1 in the second leg after a memorable match that took the word “remontada” to the French dictionary.
Luis Enrique recalled that if there was a comeback it was because previously there was a 4-0, with which in Barcelona "we were between life and death," he said.
In some brief statements prior to the club's television, Luis Enrique acknowledged that the tie has "a lot of excitement" due to the 2017 confrontation.
“Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona are teams that have already shared many things together.” In conclusion he noted: “I am very happy because I am returning home, like at Christmas. Barcelona is very special for me. It is very good news".
