The match is PSG vs Manchester City. But for Luis Enrique, the importance of this match is a little more. He is facing Pep Guardiola again in the dugout after a long time. The two have played together in the Barcelona and Spain teams during their playing career, they are also very good friends. But he hopes, it will not be the most important match of the season for them.
Enrique and Guardiola were teammates in Barcelona for five years from 1996 to 2001. Later, when Guardiola was the coach of Barcelona, Enrique was in charge of the Barcelona ‘B’ team.
The two have met four times in the dugout so far. Where both the wins are equal to two. Both teams are in the Champions League. PSG is in the 25th place with 7 points from 6 matches and 2 wins in the new format. The English champion City is number 22 with 2 wins and 8 points in a draw. The top eight teams in the 36-team tournament will go directly to the last sixteen. The ninth to 24th placed teams will play a two-legged play-off to determine the remaining eight teams in the last sixteen.
City and PSG are unlikely to be in the top eight. It is difficult for them to be among the top 24 teams. “Tomorrow (Wednesday) is a special match, and not only because of the importance for both teams, but because I will be facing a friend who I have played with for many years and coach. As we faced each other.”
“Hopefully, the most important match will not be against Manchester City, it will be at the next stage of the competition at a very high level, where there is a risk of losing the trophy. That’s what I hope.”
But the PSG coach knows, the result of the upcoming match could be important in deciding the future of the two teams in the tournament.
“This is a very special match because of the new format of the Champions League. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that City would have so few points before the seventh game. But this is football and this is the new format. Right now we don’t know how many points we will need to move to the next step, no one can say. Maybe we will know after this round.”
PSG lost away matches at Arsenal and Bayern Munich. However, the draw at home with PSV Eindhoven and the loss against Atletico Madrid is burning Enrique more. This is the reality. We should have won these two matches, but football is not that easy. If we got these five points we would have already qualified for the next stage.”