Luis Enrique and the World Cup: an unfinished story

USA 1994: The elbow that shocked the world

Luis Enrique’s first World Cup appearance came at USA 1994. At the age of 24, the then-Real Madrid player had done enough to impress coach Javier Clemente and earn a place within Spain’s squad. At the time, Spain were in a transition period with their style of play, moving away from ‘La Furia’ and developing their own artful way of playing the beautiful game, and Luis Enrique perhaps embodied the confluence of these two styles better than anyone else. Their World Cup campaign, though, got off to an inauspicious start, with La Roja held to consecutive draws by Korea Republic and the defending champions, Germany. 

Luis Enrique watched on from the bench in Spain’s final group match against Bolivia (a 3-1 victory), but returned to the starting line-up in their round-of-16 clash against Switzerland, and made his presence felt. Deployed up front and fed into space by Sergi Barjuan, the man from Madrid doubled Spain’s lead in the 74th minute, setting his nation on course for a stylish 3-0 victory. That would turn out to be the first of 12 international goals that Luis Enrique would score in his career.