RB Leipzig v Real Madrid: Champions League last 16, first leg – live

Football teaches us all sorts of things – capital cities and pettiness, say, or advanced geopolitics and basic shilling. Or that when it comes to the European Cup and Champions League, you can’t ever rule out Real Madrid.

But can they turn la decimocuarta into la decimoquinta – add fluency in foreign to the list – to salve the pain of what happened last season? And by what happened last season, I mean the Madre de Dios of all semi-final beatings, Manchester City administering a going-over for the age.

Madrid, of course, did what Madrid do: they signed Judfredo di Stefellingham, the club that can’t help knowing how good is perfect for a player who can’t help knowing how good he is, and the pair have taken to each other exactly as we’d assumed they would.

Nor is that it. Rodrygo and Vinicius are improving, Camavinga is growing, Kroos and Modric are more effective now not deployed together; there is the sense that something is building.

If it seems unlikely a side with all that going on loses over two legs to the fifth-best team in Germany, that’s because it is. But football also teaches us that football isn’t like that, and an outfit boasting Dani Olmo, Xavi Simons, Loïs Openda and Benjamin Sesko can give aggro to anyone. So pour yourself a nice cold Gazprom, kick back, and enjoy what should be a decent evening’s soccer.

Kick-off: 9pm local, 8pm GMT