I...have never...seen a soccer team as good as Paris Saint-Germain. (I have never seen a dirtier one either.). I thought the same thing last year when they beat Bayern. I have no idea how we beat that team. I have never seen a turbo-charged tank of a soccer player like Kylian Mbappe. And neither I nor anyone on the planet have ever seen the blurringly-fast, surgically-precise footwork of Lionel Messi. They beat Real Madrid, yes they did. But only in stoppage time when Mbappe seemed to shrink himself like a spirit to thread through two defenders near goal and then unleash a rocket at the far post past the heroic Thibaut Courtois who had the angle well-played. All Courtois did was stop shot after shot after shot from Mbappe, Messi and the other Paris strikers. All Courtois did was save. Messi's. Penalty. Kick. In the first half of the extended highlights I watched, after another charge by Paris and save by Courtois the color commentator said that by contrast Madrid had not been in the Paris box yet. Real Madrid. Not even threatening, much less scoring. In fact, at game's end the box score read, Paris 13 shots, 8 on target; Madrid 3 and zero. That says it. If not for Thibaut Courtois today the scoreline would have read Paris Saint-Germain 8 Real Madrid 0.

It is utterly tragic to have to tar this magnificent team today with the brush of "dirty." However, it is the right brush. The first thing I noticed was the yellow blizzard amid the light rain. There were eight in total, four aside, but it sure looked like Paris committed more of the fouls. In any event, such is PSG's reputation. Such is the way they played last year in the Champions League. Surely they do not have to play that way, but just as surely they do. Will not end on that note. The names of the players, even the substitutes, as they appeared on the screen flashed as eternal stars in a football heaven, each familiar to amateur star-gazers down below. This was the beautiful game, played by Paris with a power and with a skill and at a speed that its inventors could not have imagined, under the lights, in a light drizzle in the City of Light. Magnificent.