Right. Let me get this straight. Real Madrid lose the first leg of a Champions League quarter final. At home. To Bayern Munich. And their response is to tell everyone they can still do it in Munich. In Munich. The place where dreams go to freeze to death in April.

Álvaro Arbeloa. Nice lad. Decent full back in his day. But he's stood there after his side have just been turned over and he's saying the tie is "still alive." Still alive. You know what else is still alive? My goldfish from 2019. Doesn't mean it's winning any races.

Don't get me started.

Look, I know what you're going to say. "But Andy, Real Madrid have done it before. The Bernabéu magic. The comeback kings." And yes, I'll give you that. They have. They've pulled off some of the most ridiculous, logic-defying, blood-pressure-destroying comebacks in the history of this sport. PSG. Manchester City. That lot against Atlético. I was there for some of them. Nearly had a cardiac event during all of them.

But here's the thing nobody wants to talk about. Those comebacks happened at the Bernabéu. At HOME. In front of 80,000 lunatics in white who genuinely believe that if they sing loud enough, the laws of football cease to apply. And even that mystical nonsense didn't work this time, did it? Neuer made nine saves. NINE. The man is forty years old. In my day, a forty year old goalkeeper was running a pub in Stockport, not single-handedly dismantling a billion-pound attack.

That's the problem with modern football. Everyone talks about "belief" and "mentality" like they're tangible things you can pack in your kitbag and take to Bavaria. Belief doesn't stop Jamal Musiala running at your back line. Belief doesn't make Neuer's arms shorter. Belief is what gets you through a wet Tuesday in Rochdale, not a quarter final second leg against Vincent Kompany's lot when they're already a goal up and absolutely buzzing.

And Mbappé. Bless him. He scored the goal that apparently "keeps the tie alive." One goal. At home. Against a team that had already scored two. And we're meant to be grateful? We're meant to be impressed? In my day, if your hundred-million-pound striker scored one goal in a home defeat, you didn't call it a lifeline. You called it an embarrassment. You pulled them into the office on Monday morning and asked them what exactly they thought they were doing with their evening.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Real Madrid can't do it. Football is a stupid, irrational, beautiful mess of a game and stranger things have happened. I once saw Barnet come back from three down against Woking in the Conference and the centre half scored a hat trick. Stranger things have absolutely happened.

But there's a difference between possibility and probability. And there's a bigger difference between a team that genuinely fancies the job and a team that's saying the right words because the alternative is admitting they've been rumbled.

Kompany's got them drilled. Neuer's operating like he's found some sort of forbidden elixir. Bayern at home in the second leg with a lead and momentum? That's the kind of wall you don't just climb. That's the kind of wall you stand at the bottom of, look up, and quietly book your summer holidays.

Still alive, Álvaro says. Aye. On life support, more like. And someone's eyeing up the plug.