Luis Enrique wants Barca to avoid ´crazy´ tie

Barcelona head coach Luis Enrique is planning to do all he can to ensure Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League semi-final second-leg encounter at Bayern Munich is not a “crazy” tie.

The Liga leaders travel to the Allianz Arena with a commanding 3-0 lead from last week’s first leg in Barcelona, making them the clear favourites to reach the final in Berlin.

Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola, who won 14 major titles during a trophy-laden four-year spell at Barcelona, described the Catalan giants as the world’s best counter-attacking team.

Luis Enrique was grateful for the compliment, but stated that Barca would look to dominate possession rather than have to rely on the counter.

“It’s high praise from a manager of his magnitude,” he said. “We don’t want a crazy game. If things go crazy we’ll calm it down.

“The counter-attack is one of our weapons, but we’d prefer to have the ball. We know Bayern need the ball more than us, there will be times we’ll need to attack the spaces.”

Luis Enrique has led Barca to within one victory of clinching the Liga title, the final of the Copa del Rey and the last four of the Champions League in an excellent first season in charge.

But the Spaniard rejected the idea that the match in Munich is the most important of his career, while expressing his hope that the game will follow a similar pattern to the first leg.

“I hope the most important night is still to come. It will be the same [type of] night as the others,” he added.

“We want the match to be similar to the first leg where we created more goalscoring chances than they did. There are things in their favour, it’s hard to play away. 

“Hopefully we can generate situations of danger and minimise the danger to us. It’s impossible in a semi-final to relax, there’s too much tension.”