Luis Enrique and his daughter Xana, the star that guides him
The flag is huge. Alone, she would not be able to wave it for long. But she is not alone.
She swishes it above her head, hands interlocked with those of her father. She watches it billow and flicker, the maroon and the blue and the yellow of it cutting through the warm air. She is delighted by the spectacle, delighted by her command of it.
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It is late now, nearly midnight, but she is in her element, beaming and giggling. Her father is, too, his moment now also hers, doubly precious for being shared.
Later, they will walk around the field together, hand in hand, talking about nothing and everything under the glare of the floodlights. They will skip. A medal will dangle from her neck. She will jump up onto his shoulders for a ride. They will find a camera, wave down its lens, two goofballs at large.
For now, though, there is only the flag; only the sound of the fabric playing with the wind; only the here, the now, a little slice of heaven destined to be preserved in the amber of time.
Her name was Xana.
She was Luis Enrique's youngest daughter.
She was born in November 2009.
She was, in his words, 'amazing, a whirlwind'.
She was five when her father's Barcelona side beat Juventus in the 2014-15 Champions League final.
On August 29, 2019, she died.
There is a scene, towards the end of No Teneis Ni P*** Idea (You Don't Have a F****** Clue), the brilliant three-part documentary about Luis Enrique that aired in Spain and France this year, that stops you in your tracks.
It takes place at a fundraising dinner for Fundacion Xana, the charity set up by the coach and his wife, Elena Cullell, in their daughter's name. Former Barcelona captain Carles Puyol is there. So, too, is the Catalan musician Joan Dausa, who sings an emotional tribute to Xana.
At one point, Luis Enrique greets a group of teenage girls and their mothers. They chat, joke around a little. After a few seconds, you realise who these girls are. They were Xana's friends.
They were the same age as she was. Now they are older.
Xana was nine when she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. Luis Enrique was coaching the Spain national team; he walked away from the job when the seriousness of the illness became apparent.
For five months, Xana was kept at Sant Joan de Deu, a children's hospital in Barcelona. She spent her final hours at home, surrounded by members of her family. 'Those moments were very tough, but at the same time very moving, very intimate,' Luis Enrique says in the documentary.
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He glows as he describes Xana's personality, the joy she brought to his life and those of so many others. There is, notably, no hint of anger or bitterness in his voice at any stage. Those feelings would be entirely justifiable in the face of the hurt and the loss, but they appear absent here. Instead, Luis Enrique presents an image of equanimity as admirable as it is touching.
'The most negative experiences of your life are the ones that teach you the most,' he says. '(People might think,) 'But your little girl, your daughter, died aged nine…'. My daughter came to live with us for nine wonderful years. We have a thousand memories of her.
'You may ask whether I consider myself fortunate or unfortunate. I consider myself to have been fortunate. Very fortunate.'
Six years after Xana's death, Luis Enrique carries his daughter with him — not merely as a memory but as a presence.
'You will be the star that guides our family,' he posted on social media after her death. 'Her energy is still very much with us,' he said at the launch of Fundacion Xana.
In the documentary, he is even more explicit. 'Xana is still watching us,' he says.
This is not a football story, but football is mixed in there. This Saturday, Luis Enrique will lead Paris Saint-Germain out against Inter. It will be his second Champions League final as a coach. A decade has now passed since he and Xana celebrated that Barcelona victory on the pitch in Berlin. Little wonder it has been on his mind.
'That is an incredible memory,' he said in a press conference before PSG's Ligue 1 match against Lens in January. 'I have an amazing photo of her, planting a Barcelona flag into the turf.
'I want to be able to do the same with a Paris Saint-Germain flag. My daughter won't be there in the physical sense but she will be there spiritually, and that's very important to me.'
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He had been asked how he found the strength to go on after Xana's death. 'I'm motivated to keep moving forward, facing whatever life throws at me,' he said.
In the immediate term, that means a night of reckoning — for him personally and for his team.
Alone, it would be a lot to cope with, even for a coach of his experience.
But Luis Enrique is not alone.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Ben Radford/Corbi, Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)
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In some cases, these individuals return to prison, where the most severe psychiatric cases are managed in specialized units known as ATSM (mental health protection units). These sections provide more continuous medical care, and inmates often participate in group activities during the day, although they return to their cells at night. Currently, 32 ATSM units operate within 17 penitentiary institutions, one per region, housing approximately 300 prisoners with serious mental health conditions. 'The shift to REMS created parallel systems of care, but the overall response remains inadequate,' said Ines Testoni, PhD, a professor of social psychology at the University of Padua, Padua, who has conducted extensive research on prison mental health and suicide prevention. 'Many people with psychiatric conditions still end up in prison, where they cannot be properly managed.' Suicide is a sentinel event, an extreme signal of unmanageable psychological distress. Estimates of suicide in prisons vary depending on the source. According to the National Guarantor for the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty, which compiled data from penitentiary authorities, there were 83 suicides in 2024, compared to 68 in 2023 and 84 in 2022. However, Ristretti Orizzonti, a long-standing publication by inmates at Padua Prison, reported that 2024 saw 91 suicides. The magazine also estimated that total prison deaths from all causes reached an unprecedented 246 in 2024, up from 241 in 2023 and 212 in 2022. The psychological toll extends beyond inmates. 'Prison staff face the difficult task of balancing punitive, rehabilitative, and therapeutic roles, creating conflicting expectations and emotional strain,' Testoni explained. She has also studied suicides among prison officers, for whom it is difficult to obtain reliable data. According to Ristretti Orizzonti, 148 prison officers died by suicide between 1997 and 2018. Testoni led a qualitative study involving focus groups and semi-structured interviews with staff at eight prisons in northeastern Italy. The goals were to understand their perspectives, identify systemic challenges, and explore the need for more collaboration with external services. This study also highlights the urgent need for enhanced training, greater staffing, and improved infrastructure. 'We need to invest in radically new solutions, which currently do not exist. Whenever a mental health issue emerges in prison, external care pathways must be available, even for those already convicted. For prison officers, we must create opportunities for them to process the relational and emotional challenges they face, free from stigma. Mental illness is a kind of 'contagious' suffering,' Testoni concluded. Testoni also emphasized that community doctors should pay close attention to the mental health of people who have been in prison or work there. Fabio Turone is an Italian science journalist, founder of Agenzia Zoe, president of the Science Writers of Italy, and a board member of the European Federation for Science Journalism. He has reported for the BMJ , Nature , and Research Professional and was a 2016-2017 Knight Science Journalism Program Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. Chiara Sabelli earned a PhD in particle physics in 2012 and later completed a master's in science communication at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste. She has worked in science communication since 2017 and has been a journalist since 2019. She contributes to Nature Italy and Scienza in Rete.
