Former Valencia boss Gary Neville has opened up on a touchline spat with Luis Enrique during his stint in charge of Los Che.
The former Manchester United defender was the shock appointment at the Estadio Mestalla in December 2015 despite his lack of top flight experience.
Neville’s time in charge was a disaster with just three La Liga wins from 16 games before his sacking in March 2016.
His time in Spain has seemingly convinced Neville against a move into coaching with the former defender openly admitting to his struggles.
The managerial merry-go-round has continued at Valencia since Neville’s exit, but despite his pragmatism over being underprepared, Neville believes he was not welcome in La Liga.
“I remember with Luis Enrique, when Barcelona beat us 7-0 in the Copa del Rey. They were winning 5-0, he didn’t substitute Neymar, Messi or Suarez”, he said in Sky Sports Stick To Football podcast.
“At the end of the game, he walked straight past me and didn’t shake my hand, I felt he was sending a message that I didn’t belong.”
Enrique’s Barcelona went on to defend their Copa del Rey trophy, after disposing of Neville’s Valencia in semi finals, and retained their La Liga title on the back of a trophy treble in the previous campaign.
He’s actually right for once. English coaches are inferior, just don’t have the ability to coach top teams.
Gary is not being totally honest here (or to give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he remembers another separate incident from another occasion- even though Luis “Lucho” Enrique did praise Neville and Valencia before their Dec 2015 meeting earlier in the same season/temporada). Why do I say that? Because if you examine the footage from the actual 7-0 game, you will see that Luis Enrique doesn’t walk past him or ignore him in any way. Gary and Enrique come close together and Enrique doesn’t look smug or arrogant at all; Gary doesn’t want to shake his hand either and they both turn into the tunnel straight away at the final whistle. Luis Enrique doesn’t smirk or walk past him, he has that compassionate look of “embarassed to win by so much” on his face, no animosity or arrogance at all, in fact, there is some empathy and embarassment in winning so convincingly from Luis Enrique’s expression. The footage also show Gary just quickly wants to go into the tunnel right after the final whistle as his team has just got a hiding. If you examine it, they BOTH enter the same tunnel (at Camp Nou) at the same time. The footage of the full match is available online for anyone to investigate. I don’t blame Gary for relating this story on Stick to Football, but sometimes the memories ex-players have is of a separate incident or a “vibe” from their perspective (because they are under duress/stress – Gary was also looking ill or stressed due to the job pressures around that time hence perhaps his memory is hazy/foggy as well), because from the footage, it is definitely not the case and this snub did not happen in this particular 7-0 game.