David Shonfield: Playing it cool pays dividends for Enrique

Football managers are either wizards or muggles.

Some people insist that the difference between failure and success is managerial genius, others are convinced that everything starts and finishes with the men on the pitch. The mystique of the manager is phoney. “Barcelona? My granny could win the league with them.”

The Granny Theory of Management finds an echo in the reaction to Barcelona’s seemingly unstoppable march towards the treble. When you can field their three-man attack, with Luis Suarez, Neymar and above all Lionel Messi in full cry, it doesn’t much matter who is at the helm.