Luis Enrique made the impossible, possible - he now looks as all-knowing as Barcelona looked all-conquering

So pilloried for so long, so questioned for so long, Luis Enrique now looks all-knowing just as his side look all-conquering. The Barcelona manager, after all, predicted this. And not just that they would go through. He predicted the number of goals his side would get against Paris Saint-Germain, and said it with the conviction of someone who truly believed. His team also truly played with that belief, to make his prediction - or, rather his proclamation - come off.

“If a team can score four times against us, we can score six times against them,” Luis Enrique had said on the eve of the game.

He surely couldn’t have predicted how they would do it though. The sensational fact that they finally overturned a 4-0 first-leg deficit by scoring three goals in the last five minutes with one of those in the last 30 seconds - having also conceded what looked the killer away goal - is actually just one of many incredible elements to this game.

Then there was the curiosity that, to achieve this greatest ever European Cup comeback, one of the greatest ever players was actually very quiet. Barca managed to do this without having Leo Messi anywhere near his best, although he was so obviously crowded out with the one thing that PSG did well in this game, and he did absolutely smash home a pressure penalty at a key moment of the game.

The trueness of that kick, the way it seemed an example of such distilled focus, also symbolised the Barcelona performance. Right from the start, they had that rare and heightened intensity of application of a team that is truly immersed; that has that severe sense of mission that means there is no hesitation to anything they do.

That was one great contrast between the teams, and one big reason for the final result. While PSG were so shambolic and so obviously nervous, Barca were so sharp, and ensured their fluid new formation - another Luis Enrique masterstroke - was just too much for the French champions’ desperately deep defence.

The Catalans were playing with a fire as well as that fluency and, for all the debate about how Luis Enrique man-manages this team, he seemed to completely catch the right mood. He set the right tone, both in his pre-game press conference and in the dressing room beforehand. Centre-half Samuel Umtiti, who was so accomplished on the night, certainly indicated this.

“The coach asked us [before the game] if we’d already pulled off a ‘remontada’ and nearly no one said 'yes’. We did what the coach wanted. When we play with that attitude, we’re very strong.”

Match-winner Sergi Roberto also so appropriately summed up their attitude, in describing what he did for that decisive goal.

“I threw myself at it with everything.”

It was a match that had everything, including some spectacular moments, not least Neymar’s exquisite tide-turning free-kick. That was the other huge element of this comeback. If Messi was so successfully crowded out by PSG - and praising them seems so incongruous given the nature of their collapse - that just left space for others. Andres Iniesta and Neymar were two players to especially revel in that space.

The Brazilian was brilliant, and set a tone himself with a fierce long-range shot that went inches wide when the score was 1-0.

Not everything he did was so creditable, mind. PSG felt the penalty he won just after half-time was very doubtful, but still probably wasn’t as dubious as the one Luis Suarez won for Neymar himself to make it 5-1. The Uruguayan in particular seemed to dive.

Many around the French champions’ camp were bitterly complaining about some of those moments, many of the decisions and the way that Barcelona so blatantly tried to influence the referee.

“The refereeing decisions went against us,” Unai Emery complained.

The reality, however, is that was probably just an extension of Barca’s extreme application. To achieve the impossible, after all, you probably have to push everything to the limit - including the rules.

This is not to excuse some genuinely shameful behaviour. That’s just the game. That’s football. It is brutal.

It was especially brutal on PSG. But, if you’re inches and seconds from something truly historic, as Suarez was as he went down just when he seemed to be put through for that fifth goal, you’re probably not going politely accept not getting there and meekly dust yourself down.

You’re going to absolutely fight to the death. That’s what Barca did, and it wasn’t always pretty, but it did produce something spectacular.

It really is so astounding that even this club, and even this team with players like Messi, can still do something that completely amazes the football world.

“I cannot believe it,” Ivan Rakitic side with breathless exhilaration. “It was really impossible… it is crazy and unbelievable.”

You could say couldn’t have predicted it, but someone did.

It was just one of many things that Luis Enrique got right, on a very special night.