Is Luis Enrique the right man for Barcelona?
COMMENT: The Asturian coach has already met with sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta and is set to succeed Gerardo Martino next season, but is he the correct choice? "The biggest risk we can take is to not take risks," Pep Guardiola once said. Barcelona took a chance on the Catalan coach back in 2008 and it paid off handsomely. Six years on and the Blaugrana are about to do something similar as they prepare to appoint Luis Enrique to replace Gerardo Martino this summer. But is it the right risk? Martino may yet win La Liga for Barca, but the Argentine has already said he doesn't deserve a second chance following some disappointing results in all competitions in recent weeks. The 51-year-old has also grown tired of constant criticism concerning the club's playing style over the course of the season. "If the coach isn't in-house or Dutch, then there's more debate," Martino claimed earlier on this term. But as he draws towards the end of his first campaign in Spain, still it seems the South American isn't entirely in tune with the Catalan club. That could never be said of Guardiola, who came through at La Masia and spent the majority of his career as a player at Camp Nou. Luis Enrique took a different route, starting out at Sporting Gijon and even playing for Real Madrid, but the midfielder's finest years were spent at Barcelona and he always said he felt much more identified with the Blaugrana blueprint. "I was always a Barca fan," he once said. "Sporting [Gijon] first and then Barca. I like my teams to be very attacking. Perhaps because I always played in attack. There's a lot of politics in that respect, but it's all a lie - the merit of a coach is to adapt to the players he has available." After retirement, Luis Enrique followed the footsteps of his former team-mate Guardiola by coaching Barca B successfully in the lower leagues, but his first big job ended in disappointment as he lasted a sole season at Roma. However, he wasn't given the players or the time to truly instill his philosophy in the Italian capital. It was supposed to be a long-term project, but after an indifferent debut campaign which brought an overhaul in the playing style and took time to impress on the players, he wasn't given the backing he had been promised and decided to move on.
