PSG are fuelled by Luis Enrique's refusal to run from tragedy - and he will use memory of his late daughter as inspiration against Chelsea, writes KIERAN GILL

Her name was Xana. She was Luis Enrique’s daughter. She died on August 29, 2019, of bone cancer at nine years old, and Enrique will tell you that wherever he goes, she goes, too. In spirit if not in body. 

They are a family at Paris Saint-Germain and it is hard to resent the success they have finally found beyond their domestic domination in France.

Enrique is an enormous reason for that, with the Parisians intent on beating Chelsea tomorrow so they can say they rule the world as well as Europe.

When PSG won the Champions League by defeating Inter Milan 5-0 in May, their supporters created a tifo, huge in size as well as sentimentality. It depicted Xana with their flag being planted in the centre circle, after she had performed that very act when Enrique won the same trophy in 2015 with Barcelona — just a little girl having fun with her father on an evening of pure ecstasy.

It was enough to move you to tears, that tifo. Likewise, Enrique changed into a T-shirt which paid tribute to his daughter. Empathy filled households around the world as we watched the new European champions bask in their youthful brilliance.

Here in New York, at the 9/11 Museum, they have an exhibition displaying art created by children expressing their grief as a form of therapy for the loved ones lost on that disastrous day. It included a papier-mache fireman’s hat, and for whatever reason it was that item which moved me to tears while considering a month spent away from my son, Ezra, in covering this competition.

But then you remember: Enrique is not so fortunate. He will not get to fly home and do the nursery run on Tuesday once the Club World Cup has concluded.

PSG’s manager, 55, wears his grief — literally, after that Champions League final — and how he has summoned the strength to discuss his own daughter with the media, we do not know. The courage he has to speak on the legacy left behind by Xana boggles the mind. He even insists he is ‘lucky’ because he spent nine magical years with someone so special.

‘Very lucky,’ he said in a TV interview which went viral. ‘But your daughter passed away at nine?’ replied the interviewer. ‘Well, my daughter came to live with us for nine wonderful years. We have thousands of memories of her, photos, videos, incredible things.

‘My mother couldn’t keep photos of Xana, until I arrived home and I asked her, “Why aren’t there any photos of Xana, mum?” “I can’t, I can’t,” she said. “Mum, you have to put up photos of Xana. She’s alive. In the physical sense, she is not here. But in a spiritual sense, she is.” Because every day we talk about her, we laugh, we remember. Because I think Xana still sees us.’

Chelsea could have had Enrique for themselves. In April 2023, he was in London to be interviewed by the Blues after the sacking of Graham Potter. The Spaniard had been having English lessons while waiting for an opportunity to manage in the Premier League.

But Enrique, who had won the Treble with Barcelona in 2015, was only one member of Chelsea’s seven-man shortlist, believed to include Julian Nagelsmann, Ruben Amorim, Oliver Glasner, Luciano Spalletti, Roberto De Zerbi and Mauricio Pochettino, who ultimately got the job.

PSG hired Enrique instead, and the similarities between them and Chelsea are obvious. They are two of Europe’s youngest sides, each trying to build a team to dominate the next decade.

PSG are much further down the line in that regard, having won the Champions League. Chelsea won this season’s Conference League by contrast, but are back among the big boys after finishing fourth in the Premier League.

What will be, will be. Chelsea are happy with Maresca as their head coach, believing he has had as productive a season as possible. He got them into the Champions League. He won the Conference League. And he has taken them to this Club World Cup final — their 64th game of the 2024-25 season — which will be held at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in front of President Trump.

Few give Chelsea much chance tomorrow of overcoming PSG, who dismantled Real Madrid 4-0 in the semi-finals, but defender Levi Colwill said yesterday: ‘Real Madrid are very different from us. They don’t press like us or play like us. PSG can’t expect us to give them the same game.

‘You have to respect how they press, how they play, but we’re not going to change our whole way to play them. We’ve got our plan, our identity which we’re going to stick to through the gaffer. That’s when we play our best football so let’s stick to it. Most people around the world would expect PSG to win but we don’t think that.’

But if it is Enrique who lifts the Club World Cup trophy, it will not be heavy. Xana will be there helping him lift it up.