There is just one game left in the season in which Paris Saint-Germain finally won the first Champions League in their history to complete a historic treble and that game is the Club World Cup final, but Luis Enrique says it has not been his best. He was better, he claims, when he lost. Besides, the PSG coach said, Manchester City remain the best team around and his side must face a Chelsea team he likened to his own which can still deny them the perfect campaign and have a manager he “loves”.
“The Champions League was our first and it was very important: that was our main objective when we came to Paris last year,” Enrique said. “And on Sunday we have the chance, with the last game of the season, to win another one, with the Club World Cup. But it is important that we are conscious of the difficulty of the game. [Enzo] Maresca is a coach I love. I love the way he has of playing with the ball. They have a lot of good individual platers but they also have a real sense of duty. They are a bit like our team. They are physically strong too. It will be a very even game and a very difficult one.
“Chelsea won the Conference League, they finished fourth in the league, they are growing a lot. They have great players, technical players, and a great coach who I like a lot because of how they try to play from deep, always press, always want to attack. They are a very complete team that has produced a sensational season. This is no easy team and it is not a formality or anything like it. We will approach it 100% focused to try to round off a historic season.
“Was it our best season? Maybe, but we have to win to complete it. Anyway, you go a final and there is a loser and there is a winner too, but that doesn’t mean the loser has done badly. We will give 100% and see which prize we get.
“A team is 11 stars, that’s football,” the PSG coach continued. “We don’t want one, we want 11, or 13, 14, 15 … that is what we want. We are looking for the real star to be the entire team. It’s like the fans: there is not one star, it is the whole of the Parc des Princes. I think the path is clear for everyone. We want stars, but at the service of the team.”
It was then put to him that the star was him, and that he was the favourite to win the Ballon d’Or coach’s award.
“I don’t believe in individual awards in general and still less for a coach,” he replied. “The team is always above the individual and that is something we try to transmit at PSG. Ousmane [Dembélé] is the best for what he has done individually, for the goals and assists, but above the goals and the assists it is because his work has meant that PSG won all the trophies. And that should be the only criteria by which a player is rewarded individually. That’s my opinion, and I am sure there are others.
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“There is nothing star about me. There wasn’t as a player and there isn’t as a coach. I like the work I do. I enjoyed my career as a player and I am enjoying it as a coach – especially the hard moments. That’s when I feel most happy. It is nice when things go well because in our job you can make a lot of people happy, and I have learned to appreciate that as the years passed.
“But I know how this ‘show’ works: I know that people think you are good or bad based on your results. The praise comes because you win. The best team over the last decade was Manchester City. They lose 10 games and everyone kills them. They still have the best coach, they’re still the best team. It’s incredible.
“I accept that. But I have been better when I lost. I don’t mind; I like being criticised more than being praised. I think I have got it right much more when I didn’t win and everyone killed me with criticism. You all think that because we’re winning, I am getting everything right now. No. I got it right much more, I did much better, when I lost. But in terms of efficiency it has been an extraordinary year and now we have to finish it off.”