When it comes to falling apart, PSG are the greatest team in Europe - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES It Is Happening Again Ad/> Oh, lads. Oh, lads. For a project so singularly obsessed with the Champions League, for a club so defined by its pursuit of the biggest prize of them all, it really is remarkable just how bad PSG are at high-stakes knockout football.

Champions League'He's an alien' — Donnarumma lauds Mbappe after sensational stoppage-time winner15/02/2022 AT 23:23 This is a badness that goes beyond just playing poorly and losing. This is a badness built on a foundation of excellence, even brilliance. To lose like PSG, the team first has to manoeuvre itself into a position where the PSG win looks likely, perhaps even certain.

Only then can the true magnificence of the PSG collapse unfold. That's what gives this the tragicomic edge. It's not that they lost it: it's that they had it, and they dropped it.

And it made a big clanging noise and rolled around all over the place and everybody looked and everybody saw and then it broke. Connoiseurs of the collapse will be debating for years whether last night's dissolution against Real Madrid was better (or, er, worse) than Barcelona five years back. By the Warm-Up's reckoning it was at least slightly funnier, given it all came so, so quickly.

They were cantering through after an hour; they were level and worried after 76 minutes; and then 10 seconds after kicking off again they were humiliated. All three goals were scored by Karim Benzema, a man of monstrous calmness. But all three were made for him, ultimately, by PSG.

Gigi Donnarumma's indolence leading to the first and sparking the collapse. Neymar trying to pass the ball through Luka Modrić ahead of the second, then PSG's midfield parting like silk curtains. And then that 10 seconds: where's