.

Luis Enrique that Hansi Flick haters are glazing, had a similar “big game situation” in his treble winning season at Barcelona. He was almost sacked in January. Here’s what happened: When he arrived, the club signed two goalies for him, two CBs, Rakitic, and Luis Suarez. He had Neymar, Messi, Iniesta, Busquets, Dani Alves, Piqué, Masche, and Alba all within their primes. We were winning all our “small” games in La Liga comfortably, 6-0, 5-0, 3-0 etc, until we faced PSG in France. Lost 3-2. In fact, it was the first time the team conceded a goal. We were 23-0 in 9 games. We continued winning our “small games” and then one month later, we had our next big test against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, lost 3-1. Then the game after Real Madrid, we lost against Celta at Camp Nou for the first time in history. We beat PSG at Camp Nou in the second group game with MSN scoring, then we met a big test in January against Real Sociedad at the Anoeta. We hadn’t won there in 5 games, Lucho rested many key players including Messi and Neymar, and we lost that game. All hell broke loose as Barça missed a chance to go top of the table. (Side note: Lucho failed to win any of his three La Liga games at the Anoeta in his 3 seasons as coach). There were rumours that Messi didn’t like the benching, chaos occurred in the Barça camp, sporting director Zubi was fired, Puyol stepped down, Barto called for elections… Twitter was hell on that day. But then, the dressing room was filled with matured players, the captains, the coaching staff, all came together and resolved the issue and kept their heads up high. And from there the season turned around. Next game was against Atletico Madrid, La Liga defending champions, knocked Barcelona out of the CL the previous season, wiped them 3-1 for that famous MSN celebration as they all scored. Beat Real Madrid in the second leg, beat Atleti again, beat Atleti home and away again in the Copa quarterfinal. Beat Man City home and away in the CL R16, the PSG that beat us in the group stage, we beat them home and away in the CL QF. Knocked Bayern out of the SF. Beat Juve in the final. Won the treble. Lucho wrote his name in the history books. Lesson of the story: blips happen. Team just need to learn and keep going. And we need to keep on supporting. Visca Barça 💙❤️