Allianz Arena, Munich
CNN
 — 

Arguably the most memorable moment of Saturday’s Champions League final had nothing to do with soccer at all.

That’s not to say the action on the pitch didn’t live up to expectation, because it did. Paris Saint-Germain made history with a record-breaking 5-0 win over Inter Milan, claiming the club’s very first European Cup.

There were great moments and magical performances, notably from teenager Désiré Doué, who introduced himself to the world with two goals and one assist on the grandest stage of all.

But all of that paled into insignificance when the PSG fans unfurled a banner behind the goal, as the players and staff celebrated with the trophy in front of them.

The image on the banner was one that sent goosebumps around Munich’s Allianz Arena and undoubtedly made millions of viewers around the world pause for a moment.

The picture on the banner was of PSG manager Luis Enrique and his daughter Xana, who died when she was just nine years old in 2019.

The scene depicted was one from 2015, after Enrique had just won the Champions League as the manager of Barcelona.

Together the pair had celebrated by planting a Barcelona flag in the middle of the pitch, a moment and an image that has taken on extra significance since Xana’s death six years ago.

Earlier this year, with the final still a long way away, Enrique told reporters that he one day wanted to recreate that moment after winning the Champions League trophy in honor of his daughter.

In the end, he didn’t need to; his fans did it for him.

“It was very emotional,” a very composed Enrique told reporters after Saturday’s win.

“It was beautiful to think that the supporters had thought about me and my family.”

At the full-time whistle, all that emotion was clear to see on Enrique’s face.

He almost stumbled onto the pitch with a beaming smile, seemingly overcome with the emotion of winning the Champions League trophy for a second time.

During the celebrations, Enrique also put on a black T-shirt with the image of him and his daughter, a sobering moment that put everything into perspective.

His other daughter, Sira Martínez, also posted photos on her Instagram Story of fans wearing PSG shirts with Xana’s name on the back.

The family tragedy six years ago happened when Enrique was manager of Spain. In June 2019, he stepped away from the role to spend more time with his family. In August that year, he announced that Xana had died.

But speaking to reporters after the game, Enrique said he didn’t need a soccer match, or a trophy, to make him think of his daughter.

“My daughter is always with me. She’s here, she’s supporting our family and I feel her presence even when we lose,” he added.

“It’s just about grouping everything we went through together and really taking the positives out of a negative situation.

“That’s our mindset, that’s my mentality, it’s my family’s mentality and I was delighted, but I don’t need a trophy to think about my daughter. She’s always here with me.”

Regardless of his personal situation, what Enrique has done to this PSG side has been nothing short of astonishing.

When he took over last season, the club was still bloated, left dealing with the consequences from the club’s previous tactic of spending money on superstar players it probably didn’t need.

And then he was dealt another blow, when striker Kylian Mbappé finally left the club to join Real Madrid for the start of this season.

In many ways, though, those hardships turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of managing personalities and transfer sagas, Enrique was allowed to focus purely on the pitch.

It allowed him to develop a young team, and establish a unity that was tested several times during this Champions League campaign.

Time and time again, the players responded to whatever he asked, and the deep respect they have for their manager was clear to see after the club made history on Saturday.

“Luis Enrique is the man who changed all of PSG, he made it so this team looks at football another way,” PSG star Achraf Hakimi told Spanish TV after the game.

“He’s a loyal human, after everything that’s happened to him. One of the few left in this world. He deserves it more than anyone.”

It was a similar message from Saturday’s player of the match, Doué, who praised his manager for connecting on a more human level.

“He’s been here for two years and he has made history for the club,” the 19-year-old said, per Reuters.

“Tactically and mentally, he is a really good coach, unbelievable, and as a human being too. It is a pleasure to work with him. I don’t know how we’ll celebrate but it’s going to be crazy.”

So in a few years’ time, when we all look back of this year’s Champions League final, it will likely be the image of Enrique and his daughter that is remembered most.

CNN
 — 

At least seven people were killed when a road bridge collapsed onto a passenger train in western Russia late Saturday, with railway authorities blaming “illegal interference.”

The bridge came down in Russia’s Bryansk region, close to the Ukrainian border, crushing the moving train and injuring at least 30 people, Russian authorities reported.

The train was traveling from the town of Klimov to the capital Moscow when it was hit by the debris from the bridge and derailed, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

Images from the Moscow interregional transport prosecutor’s office show fallen earth, debris and concrete on top of what appears to be the passenger train, and derailed carriages as emergency services attend the scene.

Moscow Railway cited the cause of the collapse as “illegal interference in transport operations,” without providing further details.

An investigation has been launched, and a team is inspecting the site, state news agency TASS reported.

The train’s engineer was among those killed in the incident, RIA Novosti reported. An infant remains in serious condition, according to the Russian emergencies ministry.

Passengers were evacuated from the wreckage and were taken to a temporary accommodation center at a nearby station, according to TASS.

Bryansk’s regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram that emergency services and government officials were working at the scene.

“Everything necessary is being done to provide assistance to the victims,” he said, according to TASS.

CNN
 — 

Every president thinks they can change the world – and Donald Trump has an even greater sense of personal omnipotence than his recent predecessors.

But it’s not working out too well for the 47th president. Trump might intimidate tech titans to toe the line and use government power to try to bend institutions like Harvard University and judges, but some world leaders are harder to bully.

He keeps being ignored and humiliated by Russian President Vladimir Putin who is defying the US effort to end the war in Ukraine. Russian media is now portraying Trump as the tough talker who always blinks and never imposes consequences.

The president also thought that he could shape China to his will by facing down leader Xi Jinping in a trade war. But he misunderstood Chinese politics. The one thing an authoritarian in Beijing can never do is bow down to a US president. US officials say now they’re frustrated that China hasn’t followed through on commitments meant to deescalate the trade conflict.

As with China, Trump backed down in his tariff war with the European Union. Then Financial Times commentator Robert Armstrong enraged the president by coining the term TACO trade — “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

Everyone thought that Trump would be on the same page as Benjamin Netanyahu. After all, in his first term he offered the Israeli prime minister pretty much everything he wanted. But now that he’s trying to broker peace in the Middle East, Trump is finding that prolonging the Gaza conflict is existential for Netanyahu’s political career, much like Ukraine for Putin. And Trump’s ambition for an Iranian nuclear deal is frustrating Israeli plans to use a moment of strategic weakness for the Islamic Republic to try to take out its reactors militarily.

Powerful leaders are pursuing their own versions of the national interest that exist in a parallel reality and on different historical and actual timelines to shorter, more transactional, aspirations of American presidents. Most aren’t susceptible to personal appeals with no payback. And after Trump’s attempts to humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, the lure of the White House is waning.

Trump spent months on the campaign trail last year boasting that his “very good relationship” with Putin or Xi would magically solve deep geopolitical and economic problems between global powers that might be unsolvable.

He’s far from the first US leader to suffer from such delusions. President George W. Bush famously looked into the Kremlin tyrant’s eyes and “got a sense of his soul.” President Barack Obama disdained Russia as a decaying regional power and once dismissed Putin as the “bored kid in the back of the classroom.” That didn’t work out so well when the bored kid annexed Crimea.

More broadly, the 21st century presidents have all acted as though they’re men of destiny. Bush came to office determined not to act as the global policeman. But the September 11 attacks in 2001 made him exactly that. He started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — which the US won, then lost the peace. And his failed second term goal to democratize the Arab world never went anywhere.

Obama tried to make amends for the global war on terror and travelled to Egypt to tell Muslims it was time for “a new beginning.” His early presidency pulsated with a sense that his charisma and unique background would in itself be a global elixir.

Joe Biden traveled the globe telling everyone that “America is back” after ejecting Trump from the White House. But four years later, partly due to his own disastrous decision to run for a second term, America — or at least the internationalist post-World War II version – was gone again. And Trump was back.

Trump’s “America First” populism relies on the premise that the US has been ripped off for decades, never mind that its alliances and shaping of global capitalism made it the most powerful nation in the planet’s history. Now playing at being a strongman who everyone must obey, he is busily squandering this legacy and shattering US soft power — ie. the power to persuade — with his belligerence.

The first four months of the Trump presidency, with its tariff threats, warnings of US territorial expansion in Canada and Greenland and evisceration of global humanitarian aid programs show that the rest of the world gets a say in what happens too. So far, leaders in China, Russia, Israel, Europe and Canada appear to have calculated that Trump is not as powerful as he thinks he is, that there’s no price for defying him or that their own internal politics make resistance mandatory.