Cristiano Ronaldo's fading powers cannot halt Manchester United's Champions League slide

The last time Manchester United won a Champions League quarter-final or semi-final, Ralf Rangnick was at Old Trafford.

Admittedly, he was present at the 2011 semi-final as coach of the beaten Schalke side. The fact that is 11 years ago illustrates that United’s underachievement in Europe predates the interim manager, and actually began before the end of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign.

The eventual verdict on Rangnick’s temporary regime may be that he neither caused the problems nor solved them. For a fifth successive season, United will end up without silverware. For the fifth in nine, they could finish outside the top four.

Their malaise is deep-rooted and yet too many of their own are blinded to it. Since the group stages, and despite all evidence to the contrary, Rio Ferdinand, Peter Schmeichel and Paul Ince had all claimed United could win the Champions League.

Being United alone, being rich and famous and spending fortunes on superstar players, does not qualify anyone for glory.

The reality is that they have only won one knockout game in it in eight seasons, the same number as Basel. However much substance gripes about refereeing and timewasting had, Atletico Madrid were the better team over 180 minutes.

Predictably, they were the more coherent one. That even an Atletico side whose La Liga title defence has been underwhelming were too good was unsurprising: United have one point from four games against England’s top three.

They can call themselves the world’s biggest club, but they are ever further from being or beating the best.

There were snapshots of the modern United. There was a booking for Darren Fletcher, the technical director who was on the touchline but of whom Rangnick said recently that he didn’t really know