Paris Saint-Germain against Bayern Munich is trending because it is, in structural terms, the kind of fixture the Champions League was built to produce: two clubs with continental ambitions, different footballing philosophies, and enough recent history to generate genuine animosity. It is also the match that reveals whether PSG’s post-Mbappé rebuild is substantive or cosmetic.

Mbappé left for Real Madrid. PSG invested. The squad is younger in some positions and differently composed. The question that followed the departure — whether he had been the project or whether the club was capable of generating a system that won at the highest level regardless of any single player — does not get answered in the group stage. It gets answered in knockout rounds against Bayern.