After presiding over PSG’s successful Champions League title defence, Luis Enrique put his name up in lights in the hall of fame for football’s greatest-ever managers.Having previously guided Barcelona to Champions League glory in 2014-15, the Spaniard secured his third European Cup triumph as a coach. He joined an elite group of managers with three or more European Cup titles, alongside Carlo Ancelotti, who won a record five, and Bob Paisley, Zinedine Zidane and Pep Guardiola, who have each lifted the trophy three times.Getting one over GuardiolaBy going back to back, Enrique achieved what even his good friend Guardiola — who has a case for being considered the greatest ever — could not. And he did it in some style, with his PSG team being feted for its silky interplay and bewildering movement.Enrique’s insistence on high-intensity, high-pressure football with electrifying forwards who dribble through defences has created a rare blend — arguably even improving on Guardiola’s iconic Barcelona side which won the Champions League twice. He has expanded on the possession-based ideas of Spain’s best teams, adding risk-taking and transitional threat.Enrique’s PSG plays structured positional football, typically a 3-1-6 in possession. But there is fluidity within this formation — it’s not the same players in the same positions at all times. The side can pull apart most defences with its clever positional interchanges.While PSG couldn’t break Arsenal down in the final, which went to penalties, it still created several headaches for the English champion, which Enrique said was the best team in the world out of possession. Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said after the game that his plan wasn’t to have just 25% of the ball, but PSG’s dominance had precipitated the situation.“It’s not a plan to play in certain scenarios when you don’t have the ball but they force you to do that,” Arteta, who admitted to being inspired by Enrique and PSG, said. “What they are able to do with the ball, individual actions, I haven’t seen it [before]. And so even more praise to them.”In many ways Enrique is the defining figure of this PSG project, after the megastars, Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappe, departed. As Arteta said, “His fingerprints are all over this team.” Enrique arrived in Paris in 2023 promising a cultural shift rather than instant glamour. The Spaniard wanted a team in which collective sacrifice outweighed individual status, where the biggest names defended, pressed and suffered together. It’s fair to say he has succeeded.Un, dos, tres: Enrique’s next target is the Champions League three-peat. ‘We can talk about going back-to-back-to-back, our club is worthy of it, as are our supporters,’ he says.