
Luis Enrique's special tribute to late daughter after PSG's Champions League triumph
Paris Saint-Germain's historic treble was sealed in spectacular fashion on June 1, when Luis Enrique's side crushed Inter Milan 5-0 to claim their first-ever Champions League title in Munich. But amid the celebrations, Enrique paused to honour a deeply personal chapter of his life — his late daughter Xana. Wearing a specially designed T-shirt, the PSG coach paid tribute to Xana with an illustration showing the two of them holding a PSG flag together.advertisementThis touching homage echoes a moment from Enrique's past. When he first lifted the Champions League trophy as Barcelona's coach in 2015, his young daughter Xana, then five, famously planted a giant Bara flag on the pitch. The new illustration reimagines that memory with the PSG flag, as the Ligue 1 champions completed their treble with their win over Inter on Sunday. Xana tragically passed away in 2019 at the age of nine, following a battle with bone cancer.PSG vs Inter Milan, UCL Final: HighlightsLuis Enrique here, wearing a t-shirt which depicts his late daughter, Xana, planting a PSG flag pic.twitter.com/WBYcngXKkq— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) May 31, 2025
Months before the final, Enrique, in January, revealed his plan to recreate that unforgettable flag-planting moment with his daughter, this time celebrating with the PSG flag.advertisement"I have an amazing photo of her planting a Barcelona flag into the turf," Enrique said back in a January interview."I want to be able to do the same with a PSG flag. My daughter won't be there in the physical sense, but she will be there spiritually, and that's very important to me," he added.Even the PSG fans honoured their side's head coach with a similar tifo at the Allianz Arena at full-time. Enrique's journey has been deeply marked by this personal loss. Shortly after taking charge of Spain's national team in 2019, he stepped down to focus on his family during Xana's illness. Though he returned to the role later that year, he left again in 2022 after Spain's World Cup exit.Now, at PSG, Enrique has led a revamped squad — without stars like Kylian Mbappe, who transferred to Real Madrid — to European glory. Despite heavy investment in previous years on big names such as Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Sergio Ramos, the Champions League trophy had eluded the club until this emphatic victory in the final, the largest winning margin in Champions League final history.
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Beating saturation In the Northern Hemisphere, Vikram Banerjee is a busy man. As the managing director of the ECB's The Hundred competition, Banerjee has presided over one of the more consequential phases for English cricket in recent years. The 100-ball competition, a further evolution of the T20 format, is what England is betting its franchise-based league ambitions on, with more than an assist from billionaire IPL franchise owners, private equity funds, and Silicon Valley technology honchos. 'The Hundred has done brilliant things, in terms of what it's done in this country, how it's grown the sport, brought families in, how it's redefined, to an extent, women's sport. That allowed us to see that the ceiling for this tournament is sky high," Banerjee told Mint over a Microsoft Teams conversation in early May. 'The opportunity that we have is to take the tournament for what it has done today, to compete with the IPL, and the best sports products that exist in the world." 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England, today, has the second-highest fan base for cricket in the world, at around 14 million people." All of this, Banerjee reckons, gives The Hundred a strong case. 'The Venn diagram of these three elements is what leagues that are going to succeed will deliver," he adds. Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet Ltd (TIL) and part of the Nikesh Arora-led Silicon Valley consortium that will own The Hundred's London Spirit franchise, told Mint that investors will 'start engaging more meaningfully to impact the 2026 season." However, he adds, 'We are excited to be partners with the Home of Cricket at Lords, and will look to grow the franchise and The Hundred to a new level." The American league This time last year, the US was preparing to co-host the 2024 T20 World Cup, which the Rohit Sharma-led Indian team eventually won. But even before big-time international cricket arrived on its shores, the US was plotting its coup in the global T20 ecosystem with Major League Cricket (MLC). In a way, the most intriguing contender is also the most unconventional. The six-franchise league, with four teams either fully or partially owned by IPL franchises, had just concluded its first full season (2023) and earned $8 million in revenue, exceeding expectations. However, by the time the second season began, the league had experienced significant tailwinds. The US national cricket team, mainly comprising South Asian immigrants, had shocked the world in its backyard, by defeating Pakistan in last year's T20 World Cup and advancing to the next stage. It was a big statement. So much so that some of cricket's biggest stars, including Australia's World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins, the centurion in the World Cup final, Travis Head, and teammate Glenn Maxwell signed up for the competition. It was no coincidence that they chose the US. After all, it is the home of global professional sport, with a market valued at over $87 billion. Cricket, however, is targeting a very focused delta of 5-10 million people, primarily those of South Asian descent, who are also among the highest per-capita earners in the country. Gajwani, also a co-founder of the MLC, states that the league was 'certainly in the top five leagues in the world," but in reality, 'there's a large gap between the IPL and everyone else." He outlines the MLC's goals and prospects as 'unique", given that it is the 'only league operating in a market where cricket isn't yet an established sport". However, he adds, 'The US is the largest sports market in the world, with a wealthy and passionate local existing fanbase, and with the most global tailwinds behind it. So, in terms of growth potential, it's probably the highest." To this end, the league appointed cricket administration veteran Johnny Grave as its chief executive officer earlier this year. Grave had previously led Cricket West Indies for nearly seven years. 'I think that's exciting, because he is a mover and shaker, knows how the business operates; he's a great operator, and he loves the game," says Morrison. The tournament, which has primarily been hosted at the Grand Prairie in Texas and North Carolina's Morrisville, will see the addition of two venues this season—Oakland, California, marking professional cricket's debut on the West Coast and in Silicon Valley. The league says the nine matches at the Oakland Coliseum will contribute $3 million to the local economy. It will also head to Miami during the competition's penultimate week, with a double header on the Fourth of July. This comes right on the heels of the 2028 Olympic Games, which Los Angeles will host, and where cricket will mark its re-entry after over a century. Which also means an additional focus on infrastructure, and another potential venue in LA. 'Over the coming years, we should see new stadiums mushrooming across the country. These are critical to growth and unlocking more fans," Gajwani adds. The natural selection era With newer leagues mushrooming and the fragmentation of the global T20 ecosystem, cricket will likely move into an era of 'natural selection," as The Hundred's Banerjee puts it. That proliferation of leagues has led to a sort of tiering within the ecosystem, with the IPL on top, followed by the BBL, The Hundred, SA20, Caribbean Premier League, Pakistan Super League and Major League Cricket. The third tier includes the UAE's ILT20, the BPL, and the Lanka Premier League. 'Each of these leagues today, to be successful, is chasing the same cricket fan, the same set of players, and I don't see how that is sustainable, and I feel men's cricket is at a point where it is hitting saturation," says Banerjee. The billion-dollar valuation may be a milestone, but the real prize is something more profound: relevance in a rapidly evolving sporting world. And as Sikandar Raza's weekend adventure shows, that world never sleeps.