Barcelona coach Luis Enrique: I don't regret starting Luis Suarez

Posted Sunday, October 26, 2014 by ESPN

Barcelona head coach Luis Enrique defends his decision to start Luis Suarez, who performed brilliantly until being substituted.

Barcelona coach Luis Enrique insisted he stood by his decision to start Luis Suarez against Real Madrid after his side suffered a 3-1 defeat to their bitter rivals at the Bernabeu.

The former Liverpool striker was able to make his competitive debut for Barcelona just 18 hours after his four-month suspension for biting Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup came to an end.

The Uruguayan international got off to an ideal start, providing the assist for Neymar to fire Barcelona into the lead with barely three minutes on the clock. He also played a similar pass to Lionel Messi midway through the first half but the Argentinian squandered the opportunity.

However, as the game wore on Suarez's influence faded and Madrid asserted their grip on the game. The hosts equalised through Cristiano Ronaldo's penalty on 35 minutes and then took the lead through Pepe's header at the start of the second half, before Karim Benzema finished off a quick counterattack to put the game out of Barcelona's reach.

Luis Enrique removed Suarez from the pitch after 69 minutes in favour of Pedro Rodriguez but believed he was right in giving Suarez a starting berth.

"I am not sorry about putting him in, not at all," the coach said. "He was good, with rhythm, he knew perfectly the style of play and the work mechanisms. Maybe not having played competitively was an issue in the last half hour."

Rather than blaming the debutant for the defeat, Enrique admitted his side were beaten by the better team in his post-game news conference.

"They were superior," Luis Enrique said. "It is a defeat which leaves clearly the idea that there are opponents as good as us, or even better. We must analyse the mistakes we made, sometimes you can be beaten, and even clearly. It is obvious I expected a different game, not so open, and for us to be stronger as a team. If you do not work well, you get punished."

Pepe's free header from a corner, and Benzema's excellent finishing of a typical rapid Madrid break, had taken the stuffing out of his side, Luis Enrique said.

"Goals damage you, after conceding from a corner you begin to doubt," he said. "From 2-1 the game was broken, and the third goal ended up killing us. We had hoped to score and get back into the game, but it was not to be. In the second half it was harder for us, the opponent was playing very well and deserved to score."

Barcelona coach Luis Enrique: I don't regret starting Luis Suarez
Luis Suarez's inclusion was not the deciding factor in Saturday's result, Luis Enrique said.

Luis Enrique was also open when saying that both these goals had been preventable.

"The second goal comes from a set-piece where there are different blocks and they take advantage of the situation," he said. "The third is our mistake, we were punished on the counter-attack, where they did us some damage."

The defeat was the first of the La Liga campaign, though Barca remain a point clear at the top of the table, but Luis Enrique said they would learn from it and move on.

"Defeats form part of the process of learning as a team," he said. "We will learn from this, analyse this and try to fix what went wrong. We will move forward out of this and at the end of the season we will see if we deserve something."

The visiting coach had no complaints at all about the awarding of the first-half penalty for Pique's handball.

"[Pique] slipped, it was a clear penalty, that is that," he said. "It was just bad luck."

Pique, however, thought differently, and said there was nothing he could do to remove his hand.

"He kicked the ball and I can't disappear," he protested. "The ball hit my hand and the whistle can be blown then. Then came their second goal and the third, from a corner in our favour.

"The referee didn't say anything. I threw myself to the ground to use my body and I couldn't put my hands behind my back."

Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta came off with a calf injury in his right leg in the 71st minute. The club confirmed said he would undergo tests on Sunday to reveal the exact extent of the injury.