He started his career at Sporting Gijon where in his first season where he was on the scoresheet 17 times in 45 appearances. This is an impressive record for any midfielder never mind for a 19 year old who's just broke into the first team.
His rise wasn't overlooked by the leading sides in Spain and Enrique was bought by Real Madrid. He was relatively successful during his time at the Bernabeu winning the Spanish League, the Spanish Cup and Spanish Supercup. In total he played 213 games for Real and scored 18 goals, not the best return rate but this was only the start. He left Madrid under a cloud of controversy he ran down his contract and moved to Madrids bitterest rivals Barcelona managed by Bobby Robson on a free transfer, a bit like Sol Campbell but worse...
After his move to Barcelona Luis Enrique really showed what he could do. He was part of a side that won back to back league titles and back to back Spanish Cups. He also experience success in Europe winning the UEFA Cup Winners Cup and also a UEFA Supercup. Ultimately spent 8 seasons at the Nou Camp before he retire. In those eight seasons he played 300 games in all competitions scoring a 109 goals that's a record of slightly over one every 3 games. His best season was his second at the club when he played 47 matches scoring 25 goals, most strikers would be proud of a season like that. What made him loved by the Barca fans more than anything was the 5 goals he scored against his former club Madrid in "El Classico".
Another thing about Enrique was that he was very versatile he played in ever position during his career except for centre back and goalkeeper. He ended his career at Barcelona and revered as a legend at the club. Now that's the end of his club career time to move onto his international one.
One of his most famous moments was in the 1994 World Cup. Everyone talks about the infamous elbow US player Tab Ramos received from Brazilian Leonardo, but Luis Enrique was on the receiving end of one from Italian defender Mauro Tassotti. The incident led to Enrique losing a pint of blood and Tassotti avoiding a red card, but receiving an eight match ban. In 2008 he was quoted as wanting Spain to "take revenge" against Italy in a fixture between the two countries having not forgiven the Italians for the incident in USA94.
Enrique retired from football in 2004 citing that he could no longer reach the high standards he set himself and went on to participate in marathons in Australia. He has recently returned to Barcelona and is now the coach of the Barcelona B Team much like the current Barca manager Pep Guardiola, so who knows what the future holds for Luis Enrique...
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