Even the strongest athletes can be brought to their knees by personal tragedy, as was the case for Luis Enrique in 2019. That summer, he stepped down from his role as coach of the Spanish National Team, leaving his assistant Robert Moreno in charge until Euro 2020. It was only later that the heartbreaking reason became public—his 9-year-old daughter, Xana, had passed away after a months-long battle with a rare form of bone cancer.
Image Source: Luis Enrique attends a press conference as he returns as Spain. (Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)
Known for his fiery passion on the field, the former Barcelona and Real Madrid midfielder was left shattered by a grief he kept private. In the third episode of his documentary You Haven't Got a Clue, Enrique opened up about the devastating loss and how he has processed the pain. The emotional clip has touched countless hearts. While fans have long admired Enrique's physical strength and dedication, they now see the depth of his mental and emotional resilience. "Can I consider myself fortunate or unfortunate? I consider myself fortunate, very fortunate," he shared, according to The Sun. "My daughter Xana came to live with us for nine wonderful years. We have a thousand memories of her, videos, incredible things." He recalled how his mother initially avoided displaying photos of Xana, telling him, “I can’t, I can’t.” Enrique responded, "Mom, you have to put up photos of Xana. Xana is alive. Physically, she may not be here, but spiritually she is." The clip poignantly includes footage of little Xana, full of life and joy, going about her daily activities.
Two days ago, the video was reposted by u/Armando_bronca in a Reddit group r/soccer where it was upvoted by more than 18,000 people. People appreciated Enrique as a mentally strong man. “What a man…got me tearing up,” said u/jazzjama, while u/niflheims17 commented on it saying, “Luis Enrique has incredible strength to be able to speak so positively regarding the most tragic thing that could ever happen to any parent.”
Image Source: Reddit | u/oexilado
“We will miss you a lot but we will remember you every day of our lives with the hope that one day in the future we will meet again. You will be the star that guides our family. Rest [in peace] Xanita,” Enrique wrote on X on August 29, 2019, as a tribute to Xana, according to Al Jazeera.
Ahead of Euro 2020, as he settled into a healed state, he returned to his job as the coach of the Spanish team to replace Moreno. But he said Moreno could no longer work as his assistant and he dismissed him from the job. "Moreno worked hard for this and he is very ambitious, which is a quality I admire very much," he said in the press conference, as per BBC. "However, I believe his actions were disloyal because I wouldn't do this and I want no one in my staff with those characteristics."
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.