Luis Enrique salutes Barca´s spirit in adversity

Luis Enrique lauded the “character and spirit” of his Barcelona team after they battled back to a dramatic 3-2 win over Valencia in a hostile atmosphere at Mestalla.

Valencia gave Barca a real run for their money, with Barcelona-owned Munir and then Rodrigo scoring in four minutes just after the break to go ahead following Lionel Messi’s opener.

Luis Suarez levelled and a Messi penalty at the death gave Barca all three points, but the match was marred by a knee injury to Andres Iniesta and an incident during the visitors’ celebrations for the winning goal, as a bottle thrown from the crowd struck Neymar and Suarez.

Despite such adverse situations, Luis Enrique believes his team handled the situation well.

“How we won the game shows what spirit and character this team has,” he told reporters.

“Despite the adversity like Iniesta’s injury, that’s the sad news today losing Andres for some time, you could see the character of this team until the last moment. 

“The team had faith to win, to add points; we would like to get it without this suffering, but this speaks really well about the attitude of the players.

“I would like to congratulate all of my players today. They overcame a difficult situation because of the rival and our own mistakes. My goal is to improve our performance and do a collective evaluation.”