When Luis Enrique took the Barcelona job in May 2014, the club were still very much stuck in the Pep Guardiola way of playing.
It's not exactly a bad system to be stuck in. Guardiola is the most successful Barcelona boss in recent history but when he left the club in June 2012, it took a while for the La Liga giants to form a new identity once again.
Tito Vilanova and Gerardo Martino both had short spells post-Pep and before Enrique, but neither stayed around long enough to create a new way of playing in Catalonia. It was up to Enrique to do what seemed like a really difficult job. Get Barcelona playing the best football once again while being successful in doing so and standing out from what we saw at the Nou Camp under Guardiola.
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Enrique, who is now in talks with Chelsea to become Graham Potter's permanent successor, managed to do that with very subtle and minimal changes to the club's style of play, but effective ones. Barcelona under the likes of Guardiola would keep the ball at all times to try and tire out the opponent and then let the attacking players pounce when the opportunity presented itself.
However, Enrique opened his side out more and discovered different ways they were able to attack their opponents. Of course it helped having Lionel Messi in his prime, as well as Luis Suarez and Neymar to call upon as one of the greatest-ever front threes we've seen in modern football.
Enrique's plan was clear: get the ball to one of these three as soon as possible, let them produce the magic. It sounds easy, doesn't it? Give the ball to your best players and let them win the game. It's the sort of thing you do in Sunday league or when you're playing football as a kid.
Barcelona would operate with a 4-3-3 formation, something that has been drilled into the club at all ages for as long as one can remember. The midfield three were absolutely crucial in unlocking the attacking players, the magic-makers, the match-winners.
Ivan Rakitic was a key component for Enrique at Barcelona. The Croatian would be asked to carry the ball forward with his silky and at times powerful dribbling and find the right pass to one of Messi, Suarez or Neymar. Meanwhile, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets would have more of a passive role in the build-up.
Iniesta's role was to keep the ball ticking over; one that his former teammate Xavi did so successfully for years at the Nou Camp. Busquets was in the No.6 role and would play the simple passes to his fellow midfielders while also looking to find the feet of the super front three whenever the opportunity was there.
Neymar and Messi often dropped deep to collect the ball because they couldn't get enough of it. Suarez was a more traditional No.9 and liked to stay very central and right on the shoulder of the last defender, while occasionally coming deep to collect possession.
The roles of Dani Alves on the right and Jordi Alba on the left cannot be understated as well. At the time, Barca had two of the best attacking full-backs in world football so their overlaps were crucial to allow the team more space with the ball. Often Alves and Alba would be essentially right and left wingers in Enrique's system. Their link-up play with Messi and Neymar made it near-impossible for the opposition to deal with at times.
When in possession, the Barcelona side would often look like this (see below), leaving them vulnerable if they were to lose the ball but ever so dangerous when they had it...
What also might attract Chelsea's owners to Enrique is how he has experimented with three-at-the-back formations in the past. The 52-year-old often transitioned to a 3-4-3 or a 3-4-2-1 during his time with the La Liga club, making his sides very unpredictable.
Enrique loves to have a ball-playing No.6 and with Busquets he had one of the greatest we've ever seen play football. The Spaniard would always come really deep to collect the ball from the two centre-backs and drive forward and look for an offensive pass. The way Busquets slots in is almost like having three central defenders at times.
From goal kick situations, the two centre-backs would split, like we see with virtually every team that plays out from the back, and Busquets would come in the gap between them to show for the ball. The two full-backs would be hogging the touchline to make the pitch as big as possible for Enrique's side, while the two other central midfielders would look for gaps that would inevitably emerge because of the opposition pressing the ball.
These are very simple tactics when wrote down like this but many managers have tried and failed with a similar outlook. Enrique is one of the best we've seen in recent times at applying such instructions and getting results.
"There are few managers in the world better than Luis Enrique," Guardiola once said on Enrique. "[He was] the perfect trainer for Barcelona – his personality, his character. He had two or three years and played some unbelievable football with unbelievable players."
During his time as Barcelona boss, the Spaniard won nine major honours in just three seasons in charge, including the 2014/15 Champions League trophy in his debut campaign with the club. A proven winner, a serial winner, someone who changed the way one of the greatest football clubs in the world played after years of Guardiola ball.
Chelsea really like him. It's not done. Not by any means. But adding someone of Enrique's caliber and expertise would be a real coup for the club's new ownership group.
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