When Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi headed east and west, out of immediate sight if not mind, some forecast the end of an era in which the cult of the individual had dominated European football’s discourse to an unprecedented extreme.
This was not a good week for that theory. Sure, Real Madrid crumbled at Anfield, looking like the poorest iteration in years just at the moment they have reverted to the Galactico philosophy of celebrity soccer. But Paris Saint-Germain do not exactly look much better for flipping the other way, left, by defeat to Bayern Munich, with just one win from five Champions League matches and somehow outside the qualifying mass of 24.
