PSG vs Bayern was a love letter that the Premier League would do well to read

The two dangling managers in charge for Manchester United v Liverpool wouldn’t appreciate being asked: “Can you give us as much fun please as PSG 5 Bayern Munich 4?” For Michael Carrick and Arne Slot, ambition stops at Champions League qualification and surviving in their jobs.

If this evening’s chat is all about the six United scored and the five Liverpool replied with then we can drop the pessimism about Premier League football’s wrong turn. Two wrong turns, according to its critics: first to possession stat fixations and slow build-up play, then to directness and set pieces.

Across its 34 years, the Premier League has been accused of being greedy, unregulated, big-six-dominated, a honey pot for oligarchs and nation states and a saboteur of the England team. Occasionally it’s dragged before the court for being dull, inferior to Europe’s best, short on thrills.

Moral panic is a phrase too far for the introspection that followed the goal deluge in Paris, but envy, self-doubt and pining for the kind of heedless brilliance displayed in France will have made Premier League executives squirm.

Let’s not be too dismissive. English clubs have won three of the last seven Champions League titles and Arsenal could yet make it four from eight (counter-fact: Premier League clubs have won six of the 26 this century, while Barcelona and Real Madrid together have won 11). Without fail a Premier League weekend is stuffed with intrigue and drama that is remarkably evenly spread.

But the point made in Paris was more spiritual than statistical. At that level, nine goals between minutes 17 and 68 is crazy. PSG-Bayern, though, wasn’t about the numbers. It was about the exuberance of the attacking and artistry of the finishing. Defenders were in on the act – like guards paid to disappear. Always when the scoreboard blows a fuse, cooler heads say the balance between defence and attack has been violated. They query the merit of the deluge and stick up for negation, like dieticians bemoaning sugary diets.

But if too much sweetness is a problem, fans are happy to roll around like bees who’ve climbed out of a pint of cider. You can switch on any day of the week to watch tactical chess. It’s acceptable every now and then just to cheer when players of sublime talent want to outscore each other in games that even the managers recall with silly grins.

The head checks out and the heart takes over. The competitive urge of Ballon d’Or contenders to outshine each other becomes infectious. Each sumptuous goal invites an answer. The game becomes an escapade. Football ceases to be a game of calculation and becomes a mass intoxicant.

Vincent Kompany saw his share of orchestral football at Manchester City under Pep Guardiola. “You either go full into the battles or retreat fully,” Bayern’s manager said after his team’s fightback. “The inbetween doesn’t work against that level of players.” The “inbetween” is where United-Liverpool would be expected to fall. Carrick has returned United to respectability. Now it’s about what happens next. A summer purge feels less urgent than in the days when Anthony Martial, Victor Lindelöf and Phil Jones (through injury) made United look like a cosy job for life. Equally only Bruno Fernandes, of the current squad, would have any hope of making PSG’s starting XI.

Soon to be deposed champions, Slot’s Liverpool could match the radiance of PSG or Bayern’s attacking only in the distant realm of theory. They have the price tags but not the inspiration or results. City’s trio of Erling Haaland, Antoine Semenyo and Jérémy Doku is formidable. Yet today’s Premier League – more testing than the Bundesliga or Ligue 1 – couldn’t match Tuesday night’s beauty.

So what, some will say. Where is Germany’s Bournemouth, Brighton or Brentford? Come on France, show us your Hill Dickinson Stadium, your Tottenham Hotspur megaplex. This isn’t a conversation, though, about equity and assets. It’s a reflection on the stuff that cuts through to the deepest pleasure zones: goals of exhilarating quality from Luis Díaz, Michael Olise, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembélé; goals born from boldness, from enterprise.

It hurts that three of the stars of the sensory overload in Paris left England to join PSG or Bayern. Harry Kane (ex-Spurs), Olise (Reading and Crystal Palace) and Díaz (Liverpool) are a talent drain on a league adept at stockpiling but less good these days at cultivating creativity. The price of everything, the value of nothing, etc.

It’s unrealistic to expect United and Liverpool to respond in kind, as England’s flagbearers. Each is on a private corporate mission to guarantee Champions League income next season.

The completion of that task may bring them face to face with the lethal energy that was so free to express itself in Paris. If that happens, it will be hard for neutrals who want to lose themselves in football made in the heart to cheer for the Business Model League.

Yes, the defending was negligent. True, it was all a bit basketball. But who came away with their soul not uplifted? Manchester United and Liverpool should know as well as anyone that it’s not qualifying for Europe that leaves a mark in history. It’s what you do when you get there.

Photograph by Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty