Luis Enrique’s guiding light, Chelsea complete Euro set, Liga MX’s legal battle

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Hello! There’s a star flickering in Luis Enrique’s sky, ready to go with him to Munich.

On the way:

Guiding light: PSG’s Luis Enrique driven on by daughter, Xana

How do sportspeople suffer tragedy or loss without involuntarily losing their edge? When life changes, does perspective change with it — reducing their profession to a less consequential level?

These are questions you could put to Luis Enrique. Indeed, they are questions he has answered. Paris Saint-Germain’s manager suffered the greatest loss of all in 2019, the death of his daughter, Xana. She was nine years old when she passed away, from bone cancer. She was — and is — his guiding light.

Jack Lang’s eulogy — beginning with a haunting photo (top) of Xana, waving a flag on a deserted pitch with her father looking on after his Barcelona side’s 2015 Champions League final victory — will do a good job of moving you to tears. It also gives context to the drive and ambition found in Luis Enrique’s eyes. He’s a man with perspective but he hasn’t lost his edge. If anything, he’s twice the coach he used to be.

(Lars Baron – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

Saturday has the potential to be his finest hour. Yes, he’s a Champions League-winning coach already — the last to take the trophy to Camp Nou, no less — but repeating that with Paris Saint-Germain against Inter in Munich would be something else; Luis Enrique taming a beast which, for all PSG’s affluence and extravagance, refused to be tamed by other mortals. It’s the work of a committed optimist.

Luis Enrique was asked once how Xana’s death made him feel; whether his overriding emotion was bitterness or pain. “The most negative experiences are the ones that teach you the most,” he replied. “My daughter came to live with us for nine wonderful years. We have a thousand memories of her. I consider myself to have been fortunate. Very fortunate.” The ability to look for joy never left him.

Perhaps the experience taught Luis Enrique to approach football with a renewed sense of purity. His PSG team have a definite philosophy to them: both in the way they play (which has been spellbinding since Christmas) and the way they are built.

When PSG were all about Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Neymar, they were the sort of nightclub you crossed the road to avoid. Once they made it all about Luis Enrique, there was so much more to love. He was brave in reframing their squad, and the uptick in PSG’s pressing (see the graphic, above) is both wild and logical. Mbappe, Messi and Neymar weren’t masters of it. Luis Enrique’s dressing room is filled with players who are. QED.

Nothing about him says he takes his work any less seriously than he did while Xana was alive. The game is deep in his soul. It’s more like he’s on a mission to generate football which sings to her and if that’s what he wants, it’s what he’s getting. Maybe an awareness of what matters most in life brings with it mindfulness, and a clarity of thought. Nothing against Saturday’s opposite number Simone Inzaghi, because Inter are a terrific team too. But there’s a right way for this year’s final to end.

News round-up

• Fulham and USMNT defender Antonee Robinson has undergone knee surgery. That goes a long way to explaining his absence from Mauricio Pochettino’s Concacaf Gold Cup squad.
• The Welcome to Wrexham documentary is back for season five. If their trajectory carries on spiking, it’ll run for longer than 24 did.
• Brentford are a possible destination for Liverpool’s backup goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher. He wants regular games. They might have to replace current first-choice Mark Flekken. The fee would be £20m-plus.
• A judge in the trial of Diego Maradona’s medical staff, who are accused of negligence contributing to the icon’s death in 2020, has stepped aside. She was criticised for behaving “like an actress” after participating in a documentary about the case.
• The Premier League grows stronger and stronger. A new report listing the most valuable clubs in Europe includes nine English teams in the top 20. Real Madrid lead the way.
• Fans of Real Valladolid in Spain look like getting what they want. Ronaldo Nazario is bowing to pressure by selling his majority stake there. It’s for the best.
• Jonathan Tah to Bayern Munich is done, on a four-year contract.
• Trouble before yesterday’s UEFA Conference League final in the Polish city of Wroclaw (more on the game itself next) led to 28 arrests by police. Several hundred Chelsea and Real Betis supporters were involved in clashes.

Chelsea complete set: Blues stroll to win in Conference League despite defence changes

From the outset, the Conference League presented Chelsea with no insurmountable hurdles. They had cards to play at every turn, and too much talent not to win it UEFA’s third-tier club competition.

They got the job done in Poland last night, despite Enzo Maresca’s decision to gut his back five causing a wobble against Real Betis. Cole Palmer stepped up, which is what Cole Palmer does. Jadon Sancho put the final to bed with what might be one of his last kicks in Chelsea blue (above). His loan from Manchester United didn’t take off, but here are grounds to remember him fondly.

Chelsea, uniquely, now hold a full set of trophies from UEFA club tournaments: the European Cup/Champions League, Europa League, Conference League and Cup Winners’ Cup (God rest its soul). They won the UEFA Super Cup too. And while Maresca’s position as head coach isn’t greatly consolidated by winning the least of them, defeat to Betis would have hurt him.

Parts of the final’s first half — slow and ponderous, with full-back Malo Gusto severely inverted — explained why a portion of Chelsea’s crowd are sceptical about him. The marriage feels fragile. But between the Conference League and a fourth-place finish in the Premier League, Maresca has met his objectives. Onwards.

• Proof that actions speak louder than words: last week, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez took Inter Miami’s squad to task over a streak of bad results. Last night, they weighed in with six goal contributions — two goals and an assist each — in a badly-needed 4-2 win against Montreal. Lighting Messi’s fire only ever goes one way.

Liga MX Fight: Expansion sides bring legal case to reinstate promotion-relegation

Mexico’s Liga MX had a valid reason for pausing promotion and relegation in 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic was peaking and clubs in the division below saw cash reserves run low. The suspension of pro-rel was a makeweight in a financial deal to assist them.

The problem is, it was never reinstated, or not properly. Since 2023, there have been mechanisms by which second division, or Liga Expansión, teams can join Liga MX — through meeting certain criteria — but the system is complicated, woolly and unsatisfactory. So a battle has broken out.

Felipe Cardenas recently discovered that a number of Liga Expansión sides had taken a legal case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in an effort to force Liga MX and the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) to open the door properly again. He’s now reporting that one of the complainants, Club Atlante, has pulled out of the appeal — amid claims of retaliation by the authorities.

There’s a suspicion on the part of the locked-out teams that existing Liga MX members like their guaranteed status. Some are part of multi-club groups (the reason why Club Leon lost its place at the Club World Cup) and the division’s status is growing, attracting bigger names, like Sergio Ramos. A lawyer for those seeking pro-rel says they are “exhausted” — but determined to stay the course.

Around TAFC

• Today’s top pick, from our Barcelona crew, is blindingly good: the coaches who shaped the stars in Hansi Flick’s squad. How’s this for a quote on Raphinha from one of his old mentors? “In our neighbourhood, a lot of kids end up in jail. Others don’t make it to adulthood alive. Raphinha’s life wasn’t easy.”
• Matheus Cunha was born in the hours after Manchester United’s 1999 Champions League final win over Bayern Munich. Twenty-six years later, he’s moving to Old Trafford. Meant to be?
• United old boy Scott McTominay is having the time of his life in Italy. He’s a Serie A winner in his first year with Napoli and he got to meet the new Pope. He won’t be regretting his career choices.
• Chris Waugh has gone deeper into the shock departure of Newcastle United sporting director Paul Mitchell. It’s tempting to see it as a territorial victory for head coach Eddie Howe.
• Take a minute to enjoy Tifo Football’s video on the most one-club man in history. A total of 847 appearances over 27 years is some shift. And that’s without mentioning him taking on his team’s name as his surname.
• Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: Lamine Yamal’s big payday.

And finally…

Over to our Manchester United hype man, Adam Crafton, for his X verdict on their post-season defeat to the ASEAN All Stars in Kuala Lumpur yesterday (a match which ended to the sound of booing):

“You can’t say they haven’t given the global fanbase in Malaysia an authentic experience of watching Manchester United.”

Look, the beancounters won’t care. If you’re confused by the rationale for United choosing to prolong a laughable season by embarrassing themselves in a friendly in the Far East, the word you’re looking for is ‘money’. What’s one more feeble goal when you’ve made an art of conceding them? And why not introduce the wider world to goalscorer Maung Maung Lwin? Remember the name (actually, don’t).

(Top photo: Boris Streubel – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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