Paris St Germain (PSG) face Arsenal in the Champions League final on Saturday under the guidance of Luis Enrique, a coach who has spent the last decade building one of the most formidable records in modern football\u2019s biggest matches.<\/p>\n
He has won 11 of the 12 one-off club finals he has managed, a sequence stretching across two eras, two football cultures and two versions of elite dominance.<\/p>\n
Barcelona\u2019s galaxy of individual brilliance gave the Spaniard his first taste of European success and PSG\u2019s collective storm carried him back there.<\/p>\n
The way Luis Enrique won those finals is awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n
His teams do not merely survive finals. They tend to seize them early, bend them to their rhythm and force opponents into exhaustion. His Barca side overwhelmed Juventus 3-1 in the 2015 Champions League final to complete the treble.<\/p>\n
Months later, they outlasted Sevilla 5-4 in a crazy UEFA Super Cup clash that was a monument to attacking excess.<\/p>\n
There were Copa del Rey triumphs, a Club World Cup title against River Plate, and the sense that his Barcelona team existed in permanent forward motion.<\/p>\n
At PSG, the aesthetic has evolved.<\/p>\n
This side is less ornamental, more aggressive without the ball, more willing to suffocate opponents through pressure and movement than through prolonged spells of possession alone.<\/p>\n
Yet the signature tune remains the same: Luis Enrique\u2019s teams play finals as if they believe hesitation itself is fatal.<\/p>\n
That mentality was visible in Munich last year when PSG dismantled Inter Milan 5-0 in the Champions League final with a display of precision and pressure that felt less like a tense European decider than one heading for an inevitable conclusion.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16119,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-35606","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Barcelona\u2019s galaxy of individual brilliance gave the Spaniard his first taste of European success and PSG\u2019s collective storm carried him back there.","published_date":"","news_description":"Barcelona\u2019s galaxy of individual brilliance gave the Spaniard his first taste of European success and PSG\u2019s collective storm carried him back there.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35607,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35606\/revisions\/35607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}