Luis Enrique has managed to rebuild his reputation quickly in his first season at Paris Saint-Germain.
With the French league title already in the bag, PSG now has a chance to win a historic treble of trophies — which would firmly re-establish Enrique as one of the top coaches in Europe after his image was tarnished by an unsuccessful spell with Spain.
PSG wrapped up the French league title with three games to spare this weekend, in one of the most dominant seasons in the league’s history.
The team is on a 26-game unbeaten streak in the league since September. With just one loss in 31 Ligue 1 matches so far, PSG has an unassailable 12-point lead over second-place Monaco.
“I wouldn’t have imagined this scenario going as positively as this,” the 53-year-old Enrique said.
The Spanish coach led Barcelona to nine trophies from 2014 to 2017, including the Champions League title, but his reputation took a big knock during his tenure with Spain's national team. Spain had just one win in four games at the 2022 World Cup and was eliminated by Morocco in the last 16.
Enrique can put that setback firmly behind him if he manages to also lead PSG to an elusive Champions League title, something the Qatari-backed club couldn't even achieve when it had Lionel Messi and Neymar playing alongside Kylian Mbappé.
PSG plays at Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of the Champions League semifinals on Wednesday. It has also reached the French Cup final, where it faces Lyon on May 25.
There is no doubt PSG has made huge progress under Enrique's helm.
PSG also won the French league in the past two seasons, but got knocked out in the last 16 of the French Cup and the Champions League under Christophe Galtier last year, and under Mauricio Pochettino in 2022.
Trophies aside, Enrique showed his leadership skills by successfully navigating the tense relations between Mbappé — who will leave the club at the end of the season — and PSG's Qatari owners.
Enrique started Mbappé on the bench seven times this season, both to manage the France striker’s playing time and to test his options for next season. The strategy has worked well so far as Mbappé still leads the league with 26 goals — nine more than anyone else — and scored twice in the second leg against Barcelona in the Champions League quarterfinals.
TACTICAL MASTER
PSG owes a lot of its success to Enrique’s tactical shrewdness.
Manuel Ugarte started the season as the team's holding midfielder, but Enrique noticed that Vitinha was better at playing the ball out from the back than Ugarte, a ball winner by trade. So Enrique switched from using Vitinha as a box-to-box player to deploying him as a deep-lying playmaker in front of the defense. And Vitinha’s vision and passing skills have helped PSG get more control in midfield.
Likewise, Enrique quickly noticed that Lucas Beraldo struggled in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinal against Barcelona as Robert Lewandowski dragged him all over the pitch. Enrique dropped Beraldo in the second leg to let the more experienced Marquinhos and Lucas Hernandez deal with Lewandowski. PSG won 4-1 to reverse a 3-2 home defeat in the first leg and advance.
Enrique was already known for his tactical flexibility at Barcelona, and has shown the same willingness to adapt at PSG by using different formations.
PSG has played with both a back four and a back three this season, and switched from using a lone striker in some games to two strikers in others.
Those variations helped Enrique rotate the team, make tactical experiments and create different kinds of problems for opponents.
“In order to be able to compete for every trophy, as I have said, you need a really big squad of at least 23 players. That is what we need here, and as the season has progressed, we have seen the importance of those players,” Enrique said.
Players’ versatility has been the key to Enrique’s rotation policy.
Marquinhos, Hernandez and Beraldo have been used as both center backs and fullbacks this season. Carlos Soler and Warren Zaire-Emery are midfielders but had to deputize in the right back position.
Lee Kang-in has played as a winger and as a midfielder. And Enrique even used France winger Ousmane Dembele in the No. 10 position a couple of times.
But perhaps Enrique's greatest achievement has been to build team chemistry at a club where star players have often seemed more influential than the coaches in the past.
PSG's repeated failures in the Champions League have usually been due to the fact that the collective performance seemed smaller than the sum of its parts.
By contrast, PSG now looks like a genuine team.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
PSG's head coach Luis Enrique reacts from the touchline during the French League One soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Le Havre at the Parc des Princes in Paris, Saturday, April 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
PSG's head coach Luis Enrique stands on th touchline during the French League One soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Le Havre at the Parc des Princes in Paris, Saturday, April 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
PSG's Kylian Mbappe, center, reacts with his teammates after the French League One soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Le Havre at the Parc des Princes in Paris, Saturday, April 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
PSG's head coach Luis Enrique reacts from the touchline during the French League One soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Le Havre at the Parc des Princes in Paris, Saturday, April 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
JERUSALEM (AP) — At first, it seemed like the kind of shooting that has become all too common in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A Palestinian aroused suspicions and an Israeli soldier killed him.
But then the deceased was identified as David Ben-Avraham, a Palestinian who had made the almost unheard-of decision to convert from Islam to Judaism years earlier.
His unusual journey had taken him across some of the deepest fault lines in the Middle East and led to some unlikely friendships. Most Palestinians saw him as an eccentric outcast, while many Israelis treated him as an unwelcome convert to a religion that doesn’t proselytize.
But in his final moments, he was once again viewed as a Palestinian who was in the wrong place, at a time of widespread anger and suspicion.
He was born Sameh Zeitoun in Hebron, home to some 200,000 Palestinians as well as hundreds of Jewish settlers who live in enclaves guarded by Israeli troops. Tensions have run high for decades, often spilling over into violence.
Rights groups have long accused Hebron’s settlers of harassing Palestinian residents, and Palestinians have committed a number of stabbing and shooting attacks against Israelis over the years.
At its most extreme, the bitter neighbors live just a few meters apart. In some narrow alleys of Hebron’s Old City, metal netting protects Palestinian shoppers from objects thrown by settlers living on the upper floors.
Zeitoun first made contact with Jewish settlers over a decade ago, asking for help converting to Judaism, according to Noam Arnon, a Jewish settler in Hebron who went on to befriend him.
He said Zeitoun was inspired by family stories about his grandfather protecting Jews when riots erupted in 1929, when the Holy Land was under British colonial rule. Palestinians killed dozens of Jewish residents in the city.
“He went further, not only to live as a good neighbor but to join the Jewish community,” Arnon recounted.
Conversion to other faiths is deeply frowned upon in Islam. In much of the Muslim world, those who do so are cast out of their communities, sometimes violently. Judaism, unlike Islam and Christianity, has no tradition of proselytization.
Such a conversion is even more fraught in Israel and the Palestinian territories, where religion and nationality usually overlap in a decades-old conflict. Judaism is the faith of most of the soldiers who patrol the territory and the settlers whom Palestinians see as hostile colonizers.
Arnon said most of the settlers from Hebron’s tight-knit community refused to accept Ben-Avraham. Only Arnon and a few others interacted with him, helping with his conversion application papers.
Religious conversions are rare but legal in areas administered by the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority. Most are undertaken by Palestinian Christians converting to Islam for marriage.
In Israel, converting to Judaism requires an application to the government-run Conversion Authority. Ben-Avraham submitted two requests in 2018 but did not meet the requirements, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak with media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
With that pathway closed, Ben Avraham turned to Israel’s insular ultra-Orthodox community and eventually made his conversion official in 2020, according to documents published online.
In the year before his conversion, Ben-Avraham was detained by the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence unit in Hebron, according to Arnon and a local Palestinian activist, Issa Amro.
The reason for his arrest was never publicly disclosed, but they believe his conversion and open connections with Israelis attracted unwanted attention.
Palestinians can face arrest or even death if they're seen as collaborating with Israeli authorities. But few would have suspected Ben-Avraham of being an informant because his story was widely known.
Ben-Avraham told the Israeli news site Times of Israel that he was held for two months in solitary confinement and beaten before being released. Around that time, a video emerged showing him holding what appears to be a Quran and pledging his Muslim faith.
Arnon and Amro said his statement was likely made under duress during detention. The PA’s prosecution office said it had no information about his case.
After his release, Ben-Avraham moved in with Haim Parag, a Jewish friend who lived in Jerusalem. He returned to Hebron infrequently because of safety concerns and continued his Jewish studies. Parag said the pair regularly prayed together at a nearby synagogue.
“He was like a son to me,” he said.
Parag also said he met Ben-Avraham’s wife and some of his children, and that several close family members maintained a relationship with him even after his conversion.
The Zeitoun family declined to speak with The Associated Press, fearing reprisal. In the end, Ben-Avraham left little public record of what drove his personal convictions.
Ben-Avraham was waiting outside a West Bank settlement for an Israeli bus to take him to Parag’s apartment March 19 when he got into an argument in Hebrew with an Israeli soldier.
Across the West Bank, Jewish settlers live apart from Palestinians in guarded settlements where they're subject to different laws. Palestinians are generally barred from entering settlements unless they have work permits.
“Are you Jewish?” the soldier shouts in a video that circulated online and appears to have been shot by his body camera.
“Of course,” Ben Avraham answers.
“What’s your name?” the soldier says.
“David.” he replies.
“David?” the soldier says.
“Ben-Avraham, stupid.”
The soldier then orders Ben-Avraham to step away from his bag on the ground and raise his hands in the air, before saying sarcastically, “Jewish.”
A second video, apparently taken from a nearby security camera, appears to show two soldiers shooting Ben-Avraham from a close distance as he keels over backward onto the sidewalk.
The army said a small knife was found in Ben Avraham’s bag after the shooting. Parag said he gave him the knife for self-defense.
The Israeli army said it's investigating the shooting, but rights groups say soldiers are rarely held accountable in such situations.
Israeli forces have been on high alert as the West Bank has seen a surge of violence linked to the war in Gaza. Nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the war's start, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Many have been shot dead in armed clashes during military raids, others for throwing stones at troops, and some who were posing no apparent threat.
Palestinians have also carried out several stabbing and other attacks against Israelis.
Arnon said the shooting was a tragic misunderstanding. Parag, Ben-Avraham's friend in Jerusalem, accused the soldiers of racial profiling, saying they saw Ben-Avraham for his background and not his unexpected beliefs.
Even in death, Ben-Avraham’s identity was contested.
Parag and another Israeli friend asked an Israeli court for the body to buried him at a Jewish cemetery, filing a petition against members of the Zeitoun family who wanted a Muslim funeral. Bezalel Hochman, a lawyer representing the two Israelis, said the Tel Aviv family court ruled in their favor.
After his death caused a public outcry, the Interior Ministry granted him Israeli residency, saying it wanted “to fulfill the will and desire of the deceased to be part of the nation of Israel.”
Ben Avraham was buried in April in a Jewish cemetery on the foothills of Mount Gerizim, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, Parag said. The hilltop is sacred for Samaritans — a small, ancient religious minority that straddles the Palestinian-Israeli divide, just like Ben-Avraham.
No one from the Zeitoun family attended the funeral, said Parag, who's designing his friend’s gravestone.
He said it will read: “David Ben-Avraham Zeitoun Parag. The Holy Jew.”
Associated Press writer Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
This 2021 photo provided by Haim Parag shows David Ben-Avraham at a supermarket in the Israeli town of Beit Shamesh, where he briefly worked, in Jerusalem. Ben-Avraham, a Palestinian who was born a Muslim but made the almost unheard-of decision to convert to Judaism years earlier, was fatally shot by an Israeli soldier. (Courtesy of Haim Parag via AP)
