Enrique underlines status as best coach in world football

In the moment of victory, despite the global geopolitical scale of Paris Saint-Germain, the new European champions were only looking to one man.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

It wasn’t Nasser Al-Khelaifi, or the Emir of Qatar. It was, of course, Luis Enrique, who the players symbolically lifted above their shoulders.

At that point, he was only thinking of one little girl. Luis Enrique had wanted to plant the PSG flag to echo the moment he had with his departed daughter Xana in 2015, but that went to another level. The emotions went to another level.

As the PSG squad brought the Champions League trophy over to their travelling support following the 5-0 victory over Inter Milan, the fans unveiled a tifo. It was a picture of that moment in 2015 with Barcelona, Luis Enrique planting the flag with Xana, except now in the colours of his PSG. He was visibly moved.

He soon ensured everyone else was moved even more.

In the press conference afterwards, an often-irascible manager couldn’t stop smiling – until he was asked about the tifo. He wanted to make something clear, on a night of so many conflicting emotions.

"Very emotional,” he said. “It’s lovely from the fans, and for my family. But I don’t need to win a Champions League to remember my daughter. She’s always present, with us. I feel it when we lose, too, it crystallises all the positives we lived.”

The story gave such a powerful emotional and human narrative to a football contest that had so many other elements, some of them quite complicated. At the centre of it all, however, it was impossible to not just be happy for Luis Enrique himself.