In the fast train to Madrid, he had looked forward to the familiar faces, Luis Enrique said. And surely he also thought of the past: she will always accompany him. Behind FC Barcelona's former coach is a terrible year in which he lost his nine-year-old daughter to cancer. Now he was re-presented as national coach at the headquarters of the Spanish Football Association after a situation-related intermezzo of eight months.
The 49-year-old was able to shine boyish again, and he also transported this energy, which was always his trademark. The voice seemed even more abrasive than before, and his body even more toned. He had become thinner because the sport was a "bestial weapon" to defeat grief. But now he is full of confidence again. "I quickly realized that I wanted to go back to my old life and do what I like most: working in football."
However, before the EURO teams are drawn on Saturday, before a neighborhood near the Spanish preliminary round game Bilbao is selected, Enrique still had to hold a sherbet. "Get rid of the garbage," as he called it. In short: clarify the background of the discord with his longtime friend and companion Robert Moreno. The man who accompanied him since his first as coach at Barcelona's Reserve 2010 as assistant coach and who represented him during his absence - but will no longer belong to the otherwise unchanged coaching team.
For Enrique it is high treason
"Today I have to give many more explanations than I would like to have done," Enrique began, initiating a brilliant payroll. Where Association President Luis Rubiales had presented the end of Moreno rather than his decision, where this, probably also because of a secrecy clause in his severance agreement, had expressed in a communiqué rather meaningless and conciliatory - then his former boss spoke bluntly plain text. "The only person responsible for the fact that Robert Moreno no longer belongs to my employees, I am."
On September 12, there was a meeting with Moreno, the first and only since the death of little Xana two weeks earlier. "In it he told me that he wants to do the European Championship, after which he could move back into second place." For Enrique it was the offense of high treason. "For me it's disloyal, I would never do that, and I do not want someone like that on my team, I understand its ambition, but excessive ambition is not a virtue, but a defect."
Enrique dismissed Moreno with the remark that he would train again soon, but never again together with him. And felt only further agitated by the ambition of his former assistant, modestly the return offer of the Spanish association to him himself with a positive response soon.
Moreno as tragedy winner
Whether he had not even thought about Moreno's proposal for the change to the European Championship, Enrique was asked. Did he, he said. "I was considering holding back, but that would have been a lie." And falsehood, that's what he wanted to say the least - because that's what he assumes Moreno.
In fact, this around the death of Enrique's daughter publicly declared that he would resign at any time in the second term, because "the friendship is above anything and any personal project." Nevertheless, Enrique recognized a double game and in Moreno a tragedy winner, because he gave himself elsewhere for his work "10 out of 10 points" and see himself as a coach at the European Championships. "I saw who my friend is and who is not," Enrique said.
The old and new national coach does not want to maneuver, he operates with an open visor. "I'm not the good guy in this movie," he said. "But certainly not the evil." Unlike union president Rubiales, who torpedoed the intended quiet transition during the last European Championship qualifiers by ambiguous statements, but then wanted to be celebrated for its "transparency". And differently than Moreno, who said goodbye to the players in tears and the impression of betrayal and expulsion served, but so far, no conclusive explanations provided.
The content of the national team will not change much, said Enrique: "Robert was one of our team". So much so that he accidentally named Moreno's name as a fitness trainer as he went through his assistant's team. "Look, I'm not angry with anyone," he laughed at his lapse. Whether it was just a Freudian slip of the tongue or a last broadside? So much mystery was preserved at the end of a memorable day, even the attacking Enrique.
