CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Luis Enrique vs Xavi: How many times have they met and who has won more?
They were team mates with Barcelona and Spain during their playing days but how do they stack up as rival coaches?
The Champions League has a habit of reuniting former team mates, friends, rivals, colleagues… or pitting them against each other. Luis Enrique’s links to Barça go right the way back to his playing days. He was one of the few players brave enough to “cross over to the dark side”, swapping Real Madrid for Barcelona in 1996. There was never much doubt where his allegiances lay after that.
Luis Enrique’s time at Camp Nou
He was an undisputed starter in the first team under a succession of coaches and one of the elder figures and dressing room leaders when one of the most promising young midfielders to emerge from La Masia was breaking into the senior side. Luis Enrique and Xavi appeared together on the same pitch in the 1-3 win at Mestalla in October 1998. Louis van Gaal handed Xavi, still a couple of months away from his 19th birthday, his debut and a place in the starting XI.
That was the first of 128 games they played together for Barcelona over six seasons plus a handful of games together with Spain - the last, a forgettable quarter final defeat to the hosts at the Korea/Japan World Cup.
How many times have Luis Enrique and Xavi faced each other?
During his managerial career, Luis Enrique has come up against several of his former team mates: Pep Guardiola, Abelardo, Frank de Boer and Sergi Barjuan. So has Xavi: Van Bommel and Rubén Baraja. But the two have never faced each other from the dugout - Wednesday’s quarter final first leg will be the first time that they have crossed paths as coaches.
Luis Enrique was appointed at PSG in July 2023 after several years at the helm with Spain’s national team. Xavi has been in charge at Barça since November 2021 and this is his first encounter with PSG as a coach.
In terms of overall historical meetings between PSG and Barcelona, this will be the 14th in European competition and the 13th in the Champions League era. The balance couldn’t be much closer: four wins each and four draws. The two clubs also met in the European Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1997 - and it just so happens that Luis Enrique was in the Barca starting XI that day, as Sir Bobby Ronson’s side won the match 1-0 to lift the cup.
As a player, Xavi played six games against PSG during his career. He scored a last minute penalty in the first - a 2-2 draw in the 2012/13 quarter final first leg in Paris. By the next time the two clubs faced each other, Xavi had been relegated to the bench although he did play a small role in all four games.
Barça and PSG were drawn together in Group F in the 2014/15 edition. The Parisians won 3-2 at home with Barcelona winning 3-1 in front of their own fans. Later on in the same tournament, they were back to contest the quarter final - Xavi and Co. won 1-3 in France and took the return leg 2-0 with a brace from Neymar. So overall, Xavi’s record against PSG as a player is three wins, two draws and one defeat.