Tactically… Luis Enrique has said it all in one sentence. Ahead of the trip to Strasbourg, the PSG coach explained at a press conference what he expects from his players: “You must run like crazy, and play football beautifully, it’s easy.”
I copied that into my folder, on the instructions page, under “put the bibs back in the bag”. Two demands. No block, no transitions, no intentions. I’ve got four pages of diagrams and my dressing room doesn’t read them. He’s got two lines. I’ve seen my mistake: I put in too much.
On Tuesday I did the team talk Luis Enrique style. I gathered the lads in front of the portable cabin and said: “You run like madmen, you play beautifully, it’s easy.” It lasted eleven seconds. My record is twenty-five minutes, with my mobile buzzing in the middle.
On the first part, I have to be honest, we’re already at that level. Running like madmen, my right back does it very well. In every direction, often without the ball, sometimes towards the bar. The intensity is there. It’s the direction we’re working on.
The second part, “play beautifully”, I wanted to break down into drills. I couldn’t find the drill. I went through my notes from the UEFA B diploma, the one I’ve been taking since 2011. There is no “beautifully” chapter. There is a ball control chapter, and we got as far as two cones.
What strikes me is the “it’s easy” at the end. That’s a coach’s phrase. I say it too, on Sunday at three o’clock, when we’re behind and there are twenty minutes left. Nobody believes me, but the word is right. The level in the third provincial division (Belgium’s Sunday amateur leagues) has gone way up, people don’t realise: we give the same team talks as PSG, we just lack what comes between the two sentences.
Silly question, but if it’s easy, why does it need explaining at a press conference?
On Sunday my right back ran like a madman for ninety minutes. I noted it in the folder. For the beautiful football, I left the box empty.
It’s true, we checked: franceinfo.
