Beneath the bright lights of a photo shoot in a Paris hotel, a few hours before Paris St-Germain begin their tie away to Napoli last week, Dani Alves offers an assessment of his team that will come to sound prophetic once the French champions have suffered another night of European frustration.

“At other clubs I have been, at Juventus, at Barca, we had two ‘ships’, one for the domestic league, and another for the Champions League,” he says. “Not many teams have better players than PSG, but they need to understand the competition they are playing in. They are very comfortable in the French league, but they need to raise themselves for games against the biggest clubs.”

Though they avoided a second defeat in the competition, having lost at Anfield, the goalless draw in Naples left one of the most expensively assembled sides in history in danger of failing to progress from the group stage.

Had Liverpool not suffered their shock defeat away to Red Star Belgrade, PSG’s predicament would have been even worse, but they still are only third in their group and probably need to beat Jurgen Klopp’s side in a fortnight to leapfrog them into the qualification positions.