Inter Miami stars relish Luis Enrique reunion at Club World Cup | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

Inter Miami’s successful advancement from the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup group stage has put them on a collision course with French giants Paris Saint-Germain, Lionel Messi’s previous home and the freshly-crowned champions of Europe.

Sunday’s Round-of-16 clash in Atlanta (12 pm ET | DAZN) isn’t just a meeting with Messi’s prior club – it’s also an FC Barcelona reunion, pitting IMCF’s quartet of Barça icons against former manager Luis Enrique, the architect of some of the greatest teams and achievements in their storied history.

“I’ve said it infinity times: For me, he’s the best – I think not just as a coach, but also how he manages the group,” said Miami fullback Jordi Alba, who also worked with Luis Enrique with the Spanish national team from 2018-22, after Monday night’s riveting 2-2 draw vs. Palmeiras. “He’s a phenomenon. I’m excited to see him, as well as Rafel Pol, Joaquín Valdés, his entire staff.

“I’ll give him a hug,” added Alba, “but when the ref blows the opening whistle, try to beat him. Which is what all of us here are trying to do.”

Legends reunite

Having starred for Barça in his own illustrious playing days following a rare, contentious move from eternal rivals Real Madrid, Luis Enrique was already a club legend when he took over from Gerardo “Tata” Martino in 2014, the same summer in which the Catalan powerhouse acquired Luis Suárez from Liverpool. His three seasons in charge would eclipse even that legacy, however.

Spearheaded by the famous “MSN” attacking trident of Messi, Suárez and Neymar Jr., with Alba, midfield metronome Sergio Busquets and current Miami head coach Javier Mascherano playing vital roles as well, Luis Enrique’s Blaugrana won the 2015 UEFA Champions League, two LaLiga titles, three Copas del Rey and the 2015 CWC, which back then was a much smaller 10-day event featuring just seven participating teams.

At the time, this vintage Barça side was often compared negatively to Pep Guardiola’s memorable ‘tiki taka’ squads by the club’s demanding supporters and media. In retrospect, Luis Enrique’s group looks quite incredible in their own right, and his former players’ praise confirms the scale of his influence.

“For me, along with Maestro [Óscar] Tabárez of the [Uruguay] national team, he was the most important coach of my career, for what they taught me, for what I learned in the day-to-day with them,” said Suárez of the Spaniard after notching a gorgeous goal and an assist Monday.

“He’s a coach who influenced me greatly. I already had a competitive DNA, but he injected even more into me. He taught me how to move within a space where I had to play a role I wasn’t used to, not touching the ball a lot … Not to mention on a personal level, a relationship of great respect and admiration for what he generated for us as players.”

Special relationship

Luis Enrique and Messi were said to have clashed in the early stages of the coach’s tenure at Barcelona, yet they would forge a strong working relationship, discernible not just in the team’s many achievements but also the Argentine superstar’s individual exploits: He won a Ballon d'Or, UEFA Men's Player of the Year award and finished as the Champions League’s top scorer, among myriad other honors, during that period.

Luis Enrique once dubbed Messi “the best in the world in every position,” while Messi ranked PSG’s current boss alongside Guardiola as “the two best” coaches he’d ever worked with, alluding to the ways “they made me grow a lot in football and in the tactical wisdom that they taught me.”

Mascherano, still early in his own managerial journey, was even more effusive in his praise on Monday.

“Luis Enrique is a friend of mine. I was lucky enough to have him as a coach for three years. I have a very special relationship with him, also with his family,” said IMCF’s first-year head coach. “It will be a special game to face PSG, and to face him, it will be a source of pride for me to face one of the greatest coaches I had in my career.

“That is the beautiful thing about football sometimes. You face these kind of things and, well, in my opinion, I do not deserve this as a coach just yet. But yes, it will be a very beautiful opportunity. I always wish him all the best; that won't be the case for Sunday. I hope luck will be on our side on Sunday. But yes, I have a very good relationship with him. I appreciate him a lot.”

Dream big

Luis Enrique’s expertise is just one reason among many that, even with Messi & Friends, the odds will be stacked against the Herons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund since 2011, PSG have benefited from billions of dollars in investment over that time and Transfermarkt ranks theirs as the third-most-valuable squad at the CWC, behind only Real Madrid and Manchester City.

But like the tagline on the back of their jerseys says, Miami have earned the freedom to dream.

“We’ve played good soccer, we’ve competed very well,” said Alba. “And why not? Why not dream about beating the European champion?

"It will be very complicated. We know the quality of all their players and, for me, he [Enrique] is the best coach in the world. I know him very well. It’ll be hard, but this is soccer and it’s 90-something minutes. Why not dream?”