Luis Enrique: Losing Lionel Messi changes Barcelona’s style
By Mike Dyce
Barcelona manager Luis Enrique says losing Lionel Messi changes the club’s style of play.
FC Barcelona suffered a big set back this weekend when they lost superstar player Lionel Messi to a torn knee ligament, it is an injury that will keep him out of action for two months.
To the casual fan, losing Lionel Messi could seem like a minor deterrent to a season considering the talent on the roster. Barcelona still has plenty of talent and goal scoring threats in Neymar and Luis Suarez.
Barcelona manager Luis Enrique says the Messi injury changes the team’s identity and style of play though.
“It is always sad when a player is injured. In the case of Messi it is not necessary for me to say what we all know that he is very important to the team,” Enrique said, via Sky Sports.
“Without Messi we lose a lot of things from our style of play that we will now have to rearrange collectively but I have no doubt that we will overcome this.”
Enrique backtracked and said that while it will change things, the team will be fine.
“This team will cope fine and will deal with this,” he said. “It is capable of doing so well because it has personality and courage. It can be seen as a test and a stimulus.”
The good news for Barcelona is their schedule over the next two months is relatively favorable. Two months from now is the El Clasico match-up with Real Madrid, and they do have three Champions League games over the next two months. Fortunately, they play BATE for two of those games, Bayer Leverkusen once, a very manageable schedule.
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