Kylian Mbappe suffers final PSG failure in the Champions League

“This was unusual for Kylian Mbappe,” former England defender Rio Ferdinand, a Champions League winner with Manchester United in 2008, told TNT Sports. “He's a guy we're accustomed to seeing at the biggest moments, on the biggest stage, when it's all on the line.

“All through his career he's stepped up to the plate, but over the two legs here he was very subdued.

When Qatar Sports Investment took over PSG in 2011, the biggest prize in Europe became the goal, backed by increasingly extravagant spending.

This kicked up a notch in 2017 with the world-record acquisition of Neymar from Barcelona, followed by the signing of Mbappe a year later following his crowning as a World Cup winner with France.

Then, in 2021, it seemed the dream was within touching distance as arguably the greatest of all time, Lionel Messi, was signed on a free transfer. Surely, with such a star-studded front three, a first Champions League was within their grasp.

Yet none of those three will be in Paris come the summer, scattered to the corners of Miami, Saudi Arabia and, likely, Madrid, without a Champions League trophy in the Parc des Princes cabinet.

Since 2017, PSG have won almost everything else possible; six out of seven Ligue 1 titles; three Coupes de France with a possible fourth to come this season as they face Lyon in the 2024 final; and the last-ever French League Cup.

But never the Champions League. Indeed, only three times since 2017 have PSG even gone beyond the last 16 - reaching the final in the Covid-afflicted year of 2020, the semis the season after, and then this current campaign.