PSG are out of this world, as Real Madrid are brought back down to it

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Paris Saint-Germain will face Chelsea in the FIFA Club World Cup final on Sunday after blowing Real Madrid away in a 4-0 semifinal win in New Jersey that could, and should, have ended in an ever bigger humiliation for the LaLiga team.

UEFA Champions League winners PSG were 3-0 up after just 24 minutes with two goals from Fabián Ruiz and an Ousmane Dembélé strike putting the game beyond a woeful Madrid side.

But it needed two stunning saves by goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and some bad misses by PSG to keep the scoreline respectable for the 15-time European champions until Gonçalo Ramos scored a deserved fourth for Luis Enrique's team in the 87th minute.

Kylian Mbappé, starting his first game of the tournament, failed to make an impact against his former team who are now just one win away from adding a world title their treble of Champions League, Coupe de France and Ligue 1 title last season. -- Mark Ogden

PSG approaching Barcelona levels of greatness

Pep Guardiola's two-time Champions League-winning Barcelona team is regarded as the best club side the game has ever seen, but Luis Enrique's Paris Saint-Germain now deserve to be in the conversation about the greatest.

Longevity is absolutely crucial when judging the best and, right now, that's where Barcelona have the edge, but make no mistake, this PSG team has all the elements to be considered as good as the great Barça.

Guardiola's Barcelona possessed a world-class midfield of Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta and although the genius of Lionel Messi elevated them to another level, it was that midfield axis that controlled games and made it impossible for opponents to get the ball.

But PSG's midfield of Vitinha, João Neves and Ruiz, an often-underestimated player who scored twice against Madrid, does the same job as the Barça midfield and they utterly dominated against Jude Bellingham, Aurélien Tchouaméni and Arda Güler.

Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson once said that Barcelona beat teams with their "passing carousel" and that is also what PSG do.

But here's the thing with PSG. Barça had the genius of Messi, but PSG are a collective of brilliant individuals who play as a team and work so much harder than their opponents. At half-time, FIFA stats showed that Real's average ball recovery time was 45 seconds. PSG's number was 23 seconds, almost twice as fast than Real's.

They have great players, but they work for it too and that's why PSG are the best team in the world and potentially the best it has ever seen. -- Ogden

This was the wrong place, wrong time for Xabi Alonso to experiment

New coach, new season (well, technically end of old season), same old issues. There's no reason to really overcomplicate this.

Vinícius Júnior and Mbappé may be among the best forwards in the world, but deploying them together on the pitch against a quality side (and even against some mediocre ones) is a major headache. They tend to drift into the same positions (no matter where they start out) and neither has the aptitude (or, you suspect, the will) to track back and work off the ball.

Against the European champions you can get away with one guy who doesn't run when not in possession.

Deploying a proper center-forward (Gonzalo García), playing Vinícius on the opposite flank where he can't come inside on his favored foot, pushing both Bellingham and Arda Güler into the No. 8 position -- once you do all that, what was a long shot suddenly becomes a PowerBall ticket.

Doing it with two is nigh on impossible, and trying to get away with it with the set-up manager Xabi Alonso opted to use on Wednesday is especially impossible (if there's such a thing). Deploying a proper center-forward (Gonzalo García), playing Vinícius on the opposite flank where he can't come inside on his favored foot, pushing both Bellingham and Arda Güler into the No. 8 position -- once you do all that, what was a long shot suddenly becomes a PowerBall ticket.

Having Gonzalo lumber around after Vitinha while Vinícius and Mbappé stand around gave PSG a clear run into midfield and felt particularly silly when you're up against arguably the best fullback combo in the world in Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes. Once in the middle, Güler (who, lest we forget, is still learning the position) and Bellingham (who in his head is a No.10, which is the position he played most of the last two seasons) were overrun by PSG's balling trio of Vitinha, Neves and Ruiz.

Maybe Alonso was trying to prove a point: this team is still badly assembled. Or maybe he treated this like a pre-season friendly, a place to experiment. (Confirmed: it wasn't.)

He comes with a reputation as a system coach and it's impossible to see how these cogs can be put together into a machine, much less a system. Especially when you're not going to have that much time on the training pitch once the season gets going. And where, unlike Bayer Leverkusen, you're on the biggest stage of all and you're not omnipotent within the club walls. -- Marcotti

Dembélé takes huge stride towards Ballon d'Or

Dembélé went into the Club World Cup as favorite to win this year's Ballon d'Or, but there was not much between the PSG forward and Barcelona prodigy Lamine Yamal. Yet Dembélé had the advantage of his platform at the Club World Cup to seal the deal and he surely did that with his performance in this game against Real Madrid.

He took his goal tally for the tournament to two goals after pouncing on a mistake by Antonio Rüdiger and then racing clear to coolly score past goalkeeper Courtois, but Dembélé is about more than just goals.

He creates too -- he teed up Ruiz's for PSG's opener -- and stretches teams with his pace and movement and he is now a much more rounded player than during his injury-hit spell with Barcelona.

At 28, Dembélé is at the peak of his powers and it will be a surprise if he doesn't succeed Manchester City's Rodri as the holder of the Ballon d'Or when it is awarded in Paris in September.

PSG coach Luis Enrique substituted Dembélé on 59 minutes, clearly saving his energy levels for Sunday's Club World Cup final against Chelsea. And if PSG win that one, Dembélé will have the Ballon d'Or in the bag. -- Ogden

Real Madrid's baffling defending

There's a parallel universe where Dean Huijsen doesn't get sent off for needlessly pulling down Serhou Guirassy with Real Madrid 3-1 up in the sixth minute of injury time against Borussia Dortmund. In that parallel universe, he doesn't get suspended and starts against PSG alongside Rüdiger, with Raúl Asencio sliding over to right back and Federico Valverde slotting into midfield.

Would it have been enough to stop this unplayable PSG? Maybe not, but you imagine it would have been less of an embarrassment than what we saw. And while Real Madrid's defense will get slaughtered by the media, let's remember the papier-mâché midfield they had in front of them. And the fact that Trent Alexander-Arnold wasn't there (OK, not a defensive titan, but neither is Valverde when he plays right back) and that Éder Militão is not yet fully fit. And, most of all, that Huijsen cost himself a place in this game.

Real Madrid's back four won't look like what you saw on Wednesday. They will be a lot better. They have to be. -- Marcotti

A farewell to Modric, one of the club's best ever

And so, after 13 years, 597 games, 43 goals, four Liga titles, two Copas del Rey, six Champions League crowns and a bunch of lesser silverware he probably doesn't have room for in his trophy cabinet, the sun sets on Luka Modric's Real Madrid career.

That it should in defeat probably shouldn't be a surprise. When your final tournament is of the knockout variety, odds are your last game will be a loss. But to go out this way, with this sort of humiliation, has to hurt. The fact he was only on the pitch for 26 minutes plus injury time doesn't really blunt the pain either.

A more respectable defeat might have prompted the sort of odes and farewells Modric's career in Madrid deserves. Instead, we'll get inquest. Such is the way of the club and Madridismo. But that will pass. And folks will go back to remembering and cherishing perhaps the greatest midfielder who has worn the white shirt since the days of Zinedine Zidane. -- Marcotti