“There is just one person in the country who gets to decide all this, which is exciting and motivating,” said Luis Enrique when announcing Spain’s World Cup in November.
“Our idea is never going to change. We will attack, want the ball, play in their half, defend near halfway, press high, take lots of risks. If we have the bravery to stay faithful to that idea, I will consider that we have done our best.”
This “idea” had previously driven a young Spain side to within a penalty kick of the Euro 2020 final, and brought qualification for two Nations League final fours.
It was always going to be the plan for this tournament. Everybody involved got behind Enrique’s plans, from the president of the Spanish football federation Luis Rubiales through to the entire 26-man squad.
When Spain beat Costa Rica 7-0 in their World Cup opener, it really seemed possible that a group of emerging stars and fading veterans with no real superstars but an unyielding belief in their coach could actually go on and win the competition.
Tuesday’s 1,000+ passes, one shot on target, and defeat to Morocco put an end to that idea. And now Thursday’s decision by Rubiales not to extend Luis Enrique’s contract has ended his connection with the national team.
That is a big change, given Spain’s World Cup 2022 from start to finish has been dominated by one person — it has been all about the cult of Luis Enrique.
Everything that Spain did coming into the tournament was at the service of Luis Enrique’s idea.
First, the policy of going for younger players who would follow his instructions. It was no coincidence that a lot of them were from Barcelona, including their young stars Pedri and Gavi, and older veterans Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba.
So despite the lack of top-quality centre-backs, there was never going to be a recall for Sergio Ramos, even though he was included on the 55-man pre-tournament longlist and has been playing regularly for Paris Saint Germain.
Other experienced options such as Thiago Alcantara, Iago Aspas or Borja Iglesias might have been good choices, and all three had been in Luis Enrique squads before, but fell by the wayside. “I follow what the players do with their clubs, but I trust more what I see here when I work with them,“ the Asturian explained earlier this year.
So the final squad for this World Cup contained not very much experience or other ideas about how to play. There were nine players aged 22 or under, and just six of the 26 had previous experience of a World Cup.
Spain’s players react to their penalty shoot-out defeat to Morocco (Photo: Getty)
The Spanish federation, including Rubiales and sporting director Jose Francisco Molina, were 100 per cent behind the plan. Luis Enrique had more power than any national coach in Spain’s history. He is also the best paid coach in the federation’s history, but Rubiales has often reminded reporters that he could have earned more at a top club.
The federation also facilitated all Luis Enrique’s plans for preparation for the tournament. This included the raised platform to watch training at their Qatar University base, and investing in the walkie-talkie systems so the coach could instruct his players one to one to correct movements, positioning and decision-making during training sessions.
This was a public demonstration of who was in ultimate control of every detail — Luis Enrique even made it public that he had decided the team were going to play in red shorts and socks, not the blue they traditionally wore.
There was also no pushback from his bosses when Luis Enrique announced, after consultation with his son, that he would be doing hour-long Twitch streams live at night during the World Cup. Bypassing the traditional media made life tougher for Rubiales and the federation’s communications team, and angered influential media voices in Madrid.
There was just one leader: Luis Enrique. Millions of people watched his Twitch streams, meaning he dominated the image of the squad. The team would live or die by how his ideas translated into reality.
Hammering Costa Rica 7-0 in their opening game, their biggest ever World Cup win, reinforced Enrique’s power. Not just with all the goals scored, or the 82 per cent possession. Costa Rica did not manage one shot at goal (on or off target) in the entire 90 minutes. It was as close to a perfect performance as possible, and widely hailed as Spain’s best since their golden era from 2008 to 2012.
When Spain did not have a game, the Spanish public watched Enrique’s Twitch stream instead. Everyone was fascinated by how many eggs he eats for supper (six, three boiled, three fried), if he prefers boxers or underpants (“A thong,” he smirked) or the hardest peak he has every climbed in his other favourite sport of cycling (Angliru, in his native Asturias).
Luis Enrique’s confidence in himself and his team also came through very clearly during these streams. “Nobody plays better football than us, that’s for sure,” he said when asked whether his team were the best at the World Cup.
This conviction that the plan was going to work was contagious among players, who believed what their charismatic leader was telling them. “If Luis Enrique told me to jump off a cliff, I’d jump,” said Pedri in an interview with Mundo Deportivo. The Canary Islander replied “why not” when asked if Spain could win the World Cup, the same answer Aymeric Laporte gave when he was asked that question soon after arrival in Doha.
Enrique after Spain were knocked out by Morocco (Photo: Dan Mullan via Getty Images)
After being a substitute for the Costa Rica game, and scoring when he entered late on, Morata told Marca that he did not care whether he started against Germany: “I am a soldier for Luis Enrique,” he said, while recalling how the boss had stood with him when Spain’s own fans were whistling him during Euro 2020.
The comparisons with the all-conquering 2008 to 2012 side featuring Xavi and Iniesta ramped up. However these comparisons of the very young 2022 team with the best generation in Spanish football history made some around the current players very uneasy.
Maybe Pedri or Gavi had the talent to one day match Xavi and Iniesta’s achievements, but elsewhere in the team the level was not the same. “We don’t have a Casillas, or a Puyol,” one agent told The Athletic amid all the euphoria of the Costa Rica game.
However, within the squad everyone remained on message with their coach: “For me, Spain is the best team at this World Cup,” midfielder Koke said before they faced Germany in their second outing of the tournament.
La Roja were almost certainly going through to the last 16, and their position was even stronger when Morata put them 1-0 up against Germany.
Before that game, Luis Enrique said the Germans were the only team capable of matching Spain’s ‘idea’, and La Roja’s domination of possession and territory in the first hour of the game showed there really was no competition.
In the last 20 minutes, Germany needed to score to stay in competition, while Spain were pretty sure they were going through no matter what. When Germany abandoned their patient approach and their battering ram sub striker Niclas Fullkrug equalised late on, it was not seen as a big problem by Enrique or his players. There was no doubt.
A similar thing happened against Japan in game three. Spain went ahead again, Morata heading in Azpilicueta’s cross. Again they relaxed, with the Japanese scoring two quick goals to turn the game on its head.
With Costa Rica momentarily beating Germany in the other game, there was a moment when Spain were out of the tournament. Still Spain kept hitting sideways passes without making any clear chances to equalise.
The 2-1 defeat to Japan generated plenty of anger — artificial or not — among a substantial section of the Spanish media who had been biting their tongue when all was going well for Luis Enrique. Among these was El Chiringuito host Josep Pedrerol, who produced another another of his overwrought videos: “Japan have shown us that to win we have to work more, press more, and stream less,” Pedrerol said gravely. Nobody was surprised. Pedrerol has a long history with Enrique, dating back to the 1990s when Pedrerol was a reporter and Enrique a player.
Enrique was also angry after the game. He did not let it all show in public, but did use the word “collapse” various times during post-game media duties. He said Japan “could have scored five” if they had needed to.
Cesar Azpilicueta and Pau Torres were among the players who admitted they had not been able to match Japan’s intensity when it was dialled up after half-time. Pedri, characteristically, had the most honest and perceptive analysis of what had gone wrong: “We did not have enough rhythm with the ball to move them from side to side.”
Enrique and his staff’s analysis of the Japan game highlighted the things they needed to correct, minor details which he used the final training sessions to get across to the players. That included permission to hit the ball long from the back, if required. But generally the message was to maintain full faith in what they had been doing all along.
The mood among the players was still generally positive, and fully supportive of their coach. The training sessions were fun, while there was also plenty to do around the camp, including table tennis, table football, pool and darts at their accommodation at the University campus.
The families of players and staff were also invited into the camp on Sunday. Pedri brought his brother and parents into the press conference room where they played at taking questions from their son sitting in the media seats. The squad’s ‘porra’ World Cup predictions league continued, with Gavi going top of the table, with Luis Enrique joking that he had taken advice from his future father in law King Felipe, as it was reported that Spain’s heir to throne Princess Leonor was a big admirer of the Barca midfielder.
Some close to certain squad members were by now worried at the lack of edge in the performances. “How they approached the Japan game has to be a warning,” said one source, who did not want to be named to protect relationships. “They have to learn from that. We will see against Morocco and whoever comes next.”
There was no sign from Enrique or those around him that this warning had been taken on board. He said the team’s style of play was not negotiable, and everyone inside and outside the camp knew there was no turning back.
“Even if it sounds utopian,” Enrique said at that pre-Morocco press conference, “I only care that we do things well, then the normal thing is we win the game.”
In Tuesday’s match in the last 16 at the Qatar University Stadium, it was Morocco who brought the intensity and conviction needed.
Walid Regragui’s side had a singularity of purpose and determination in what they were doing. A slow-paced Spain lacked the zip and drive to punch holes in a superbly organised Morocco defensive set-up.
Enrique’s selection of Marcos Llorente at right-back suggested an attacking intent to push players forward and overload. The Asturian had clearly stated to the players before the game that they needed to be more ruthless with their passing, break lines and switch the play.
But they could not find the positive aggression required to really take the game to Morocco. They did not take the necessary risks in possession, as if afraid of getting caught on the counter-attack, or assuming that eventually things would just work out.
That led straight to Spain having 77 per cent possession but just one shot on target over the 120 minutes. After Pablo Sarabia had hit the post right at the end, there was no confidence and little belief as they went into the penalty shoot-out. None of Enrique’s top-three takers — Sarabia, Carlos Soler and Busquets — were able to score from the spot.
After the avalanche of goals against Costa Rica in the first game, the chances had just stopped coming. Spain’s idea made them an outlier — no team could match their ability to hold the ball and dominate possession and territory. But it had not done them much good.
They were knocked out of the competition having scored only two goals in their final three games — from 3,480 touches of the ball.
Even so, after the Morocco game Enrique was still insisting that his team had done what he had asked them, and the idea had not in itself been mistaken.
“We created enough chances to win, we shot 11 times at goal, although maybe we could have generated more,” he said. “This is sport. The players have done 100 per cent of the instructions I gave them. I have not one reproach for this group of players.”
Llorente also refused to admit on TV that he was disappointed with how the game had gone.
“When you work every day with an idea, and you go through with it, and things do not go for you, then I do not think disappointment is the word,” he said. “In the end, the attitude was 10 out of 10 by all the team, not just today, every week, every day. We wanted more, obviously, this team had bigger objectives.”
No member of the team said they had adopted the wrong approach or tactics, just that the idea they had for the game had not worked out as expected. The way they played should have created more chances, or they should have been able to take one of the ones they did create.
The players were not angry or upset at their coach, or even having second thoughts about what they should have done themselves. They believed they had dominated the game and were far superior, even after being eliminated. They were bitterly disappointed and upset, especially those who had missed penalties, but it had just been one of those things — bad luck for them, credit to Morocco, but no fingers being pointed at their boss.
“The group were fully behind the mister, 100 per cent with the coach, I can assure you of that,” a source close to senior players, who asked not to be named to protect his relationship, told The Athletic. Another agent in the same situation admitted that while he personally might have doubts about the approach taken during the tournament, his client still believed in Enrique’s idea.
Such apparently blind faith in the coach and his idea is understandable, given the make-up of the squad. The younger members, whether Gavi, Pedri, or fellow teenagers Nico Williams and Alejandro Balde, lack the experience to really question their boss. Others like Unai Simon or Dani Olmo were faithful to a national coach who had picked them, when another might not have. Older players — national captain Busquets, Alba, Azpilicueta, Morata, Mario Asensio or Koke — have seen Enrique stick with them even as they have had issues with form or contracts at club level.
Some voices close to players say the problem is not so much the style of play as the lack of leaders or experienced characters who would take initiative themselves and not just pass it on. Very little was done on instinct, it was all done as agreed in advance, in service to the idea of play.
Ramos is the name who comes up most in conversations. Some around the squad say that he might have intervened and tried to change up tactics when they were not working. But Enrique was never going to call him back for this tournament, their relationship having broken down before Euro 2020, and the PSG centre-back is now almost 37. All the other big characters and contrary voices within the squad had also been weeded out.
Nor were there any competing voices among Enrique’s staff. His initial number two was Robert Moreno, but their relationship broke down completely during the Asturian’s time away from the job when his daughter was ill in 2019. Moreno’s replacement Jesus Casas left after Euro 2020, with his relationship with Enrique having deteriorated. He was replaced by former physio Rafa Pol, who stepped up to be official number two. Over the four years there was no move to bring in fresh ideas or energy from outside to challenge the central idea.
Casas is now Iraq national coach, and tweeted just after the Morocco game that: “The people you surround yourself with influence your behaviour. Choose those who help you to see what you have to see, not what you want to see. Think that common sense is the art of solving problems, not bringing them up.”
That tweet was soon deleted, but goes to the idea that it was all about Luis Enrique and his one idea — no dissenting voices or opinions allowed.
Outside the dressing room, Spain’s elimination from the World Cup brought more debate.
Enrique’s critics in the Madrid media resurfaced, especially those who always hated him anyway. In Barcelona there was less of a rush to criticise — Catalan daily Mundo Deportivo were generally disappointed but understanding, while running a story about how the world’s media were raining criticism’ on Spain and Enrique’s style of play.
The manner of the exit — on penalties after being unable to turn domination of possession into goals or even clear chances to score — was certainly reminiscent of previous disappointments for Spain at the last two World Cups.
More supportive Spanish pundits remembered that this style of play had got them success before that, when the team with Xavi and Iniesta pulling the strings had also struggled to score many goals, but their dominance of possession and territory had always paid off eventually.
That led to a debate about the actual quality of the current group of players. Gavi and Pedri are still far off the level of peak Xavi and Iniesta, and Spain have no Kylian Mbappe or Neymar or Harry Kane.
Some around the camp — but not the squad members themselves — said it was futile to try and get the current group to play like that team of Xavi and Iniesta. “It’s not fair on them,” said one source, who asked not to be named to protect his relationship.
Enrique was aware of this. When appointed, just after Spain went out of the 2018 World Cup with 1,000 passes but one goal in 120 minutes against Russia, he spoke about wanting to modernise their style and be more ‘vertical’.
When announcing this year’s squad in November he said they would take risks. “We will not die of fear,” he said that day. He even included a ‘Plan B’, of a sort, in young, pacy, tricky wide attackers in Williams, Ansu Fati and Yeremy Pino. Williams did make a difference off the bench against Morocco, but it was not enough.
The player who showed most independent thought after the Morocco game was Manchester City’s Rodrigo, who said repeatedly on Monday evening that Spain had “deserved” to progress to the quarter-finals, while also pointing out that they lacked the type of players who they had needed to win the game.
“Maybe we don’t have the players to open up these types of teams, we need more speed and one v one on the wings,” he said.
Enrique might well have agreed, but after the team went out of the World Cup he was never going to make any public criticism of his players.
“I have thanked the players for their efforts, their ability to manage the game,” Luis Enrique said after Monday’s game. “We created the best chance of the game in the 120th minute, which hit the post. I told them to keep going, it’s okay, life goes on, it is an experience they will have forever and hopefully will be useful to them in the future.”
One place where there was not blind faith in Luis Enrique, at least after the Morocco game, was among his bosses within the Spanish federation.
Twelve months ago Rubiales and Molina were keen to extend Enrique’s contract past its end after this World Cup. But the Asturian himself preferred to wait until after these finals, and then decide on his future.
That was allowed due to recognition of how Luis Enrique had come into a difficult situation after 2018, and managed a transition from Iniesta and Ramos generation, to a new emerging group led by Pedri and Gavi. Galvanised by the ‘idea’ of collective play, they had since done well at Euro 2020 and in the Nations League.
There was also a personal bond with Rubiales and Molina which had been strengthened during Enrique’s enforced absence from the job for six months in 2019 when his daughter was terminally ill. And there were no obvious high-level replacements ready and waiting to step in as Spain’s next senior coach.
Directly following the elimination by Morocco, there was a contrasting view discussed at the highest levels of the federation that the team had not progressed at all in four years. The players were mostly different, but the style was very similar. The 1,000 passes and one shot on target against Morocco led some to recall that it was “like 2018 against Russia all over again”.
The rough edges of Enrique’s personality, especially his awkward relations with the media in Madrid, had been palatable when the team’s results were good. Now it was not so easy. The federation hierarchy were aware that his exit would take pressure off them now.
So as the team flew back to Spain on Wednesday, it was not at all clear what would happen. Enrique said he wanted to think and talk to his family before deciding if he wanted to sign a new contract and stay on in the job. It was impossible — even for those who had worked close with him for the last four years — to predict whether he would decide to stay or not.
There was no clue to his intentions from the photo he posted on Instagram from the team bus on the way to the airport to catch the plane back to Spain on Wednesday. “Well, it was not to be,” an accompanying message said. “We are sorry not to have been able to make you happy… football always surprises you. Thanks so much for your support these 23 days… life goes on.”
It may have been a surprise for Enrique to learn on Thursday morning that there would be no new contract and the federation had promoted the under-21s coach Luis de la Fuente to the top job. More changes at the federation were also coming — Enrique’s close ally Molina was leaving the sporting director role.
The word from the federation was that the decision to replace Enrique was solely down to the team’s results. There were no regrets about having supported him through his term in charge, and they were grateful for all he had done.
Spain’s story at World Cup 2022 was all about the cult of Luis Enrique; the cult’s leader ultimately paid for their failure.
Additional reporting by Gregg Evans.
(Top image: Eamonn Dalton for The Athletic, images: Getty Images)