Paris Saint-Germain's 1-0 defeat to Bayern Munich in the first leg of their last-16 Champions League tie opened the hunting season.
"What's good about February in France," wrote one observer on L'Equipe's website, "is that even though its cold, often miserable and people are a bit depressed, we can always rely on PSG to give us a laugh and buck up our spirits."
Apt, perhaps, that it was a German side that launched the schadenfreude.
But, to be fair to PSG, Bayern Munich are no ordinary German outfit.
They are the Nummer eins. Der Rekordmeister - the club that has won the most Bundesliga titles since the inception of the top flight competition in 1963.
Bayern notched up their first crown in 1969. Under boss Julian Nagelsmann, they are pursuing nummer 32.
They have won the European Cup and its mutant child the Champions League six times. The last victory in 2020 in Lisbon came at the expense of PSG.
Irony
On that sultry August night at the Estadio da Luz, the irony was PSG academy product Kingsley Coman scoring the winner.
Two and a half years later, the former PSG winger was again on the scoresheet against his old club.
Unlike in the final in 2020, he did not celebrate his strike. He was, after all, at his old manor – the Parc des Princes
But the goal gave the 26-year-old and his teammates the advantage in the return leg at the Allianz Arena on 8 March.
"The fact is there is that return game," PSG boss Christophe Galtier told the club's TV station after the defeat.
"We all knew no one was going to qualify or be eliminated as a result of the game in Paris.
Joy
"Obviously, we're not happy with the result. And I hope that our side will rediscover some freshness and some consistency."
PSG have three games before the return fixture to rediscover their mojo, undermine the wags and reinspire the faithful.
"We will go to Munich to qualify," said Kylian Mbappé who entered the fray as a second-half substitute following an injury lay-off.
"We will have to play our game ... attacking football which we know how to do."
For all Mbappé's bullishness, the defeat to Bayern was PSG's third on the trot - a sequence unseen since 2011.
On 11 February, they lost 3-1 at Monaco in Ligue 1. Three days earlier, there was a 2-1 defeat at Marseille in the last-16 of the Coupe de France.
Prizes
That particular bauble -– prestigious though it may be – remains low on the list of PSG's Qatari backers who are openly pursuing a stake in Manchester United.
The facilitators of the Manchester United sale – the Raine Group – have set a soft deadline of Friday for interested parties to outline their plans and prove that they possess the cash to back their bids.
Having lavished more than a billion euros on constructing stellar squads in Paris, the Qatar Investment Authority has consistently flexed its financial muscle.
But for all the bulges, none of the PSG players have hoisted the Champions League trophy.
The trams outings in Ligue 1 until the second leg will be scrutinised for flaws and positives.
Can that Lionel Messi come good? Where is the real Neymar? Does Mbappé regret staying at PSG?
Should Nagelmann's men march on with another gritty display, at least PSG can console themselves that they were simply worn down by the Bayern industrial complex.
In the last-16 in 2022 in the Champions League, they threw away the tie against Real Madrid from 2-0 up on aggregate.
A collapse that caused a few chuckles.
