Which players defined the past 10 NBA seasons?

We posed this question to a panel of ESPN's NBA experts: Who was the player of the decade? Voters ranked their top three picks in order -- considering the 2009-10 season through 2018-19 -- and here are the results.

LeBron James was an overwhelming pick at No. 1, with a tight race between former teammates Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant for Nos. 2 and 3.

Three members of our panel -- Kirk Goldsberry, Kevin Pelton and Tim Bontemps -- highlight what made each of these three players a defining superstar of the 2010s.

1. LeBron James

Teams

• Cleveland Cavaliers: 2009-10

• Miami Heat: 2010-14

• Cleveland Cavaliers: 2014-18

• Los Angeles Lakers: 2018-19

Kirk Goldsberry: LeBron James is the defining player of the 2010s, and it's not close. The only people who have had better NBA decades than 2010s LeBron are Michael Jordan in the 1990s and Bill Russell in the 1960s. Neither of those guys played in a league as deep or as competitive as the one James dominated over these past 10 seasons.

James was clearly the best on-court performer we watched this decade. In case you might disagree, consider these facts:

• He led all scorers this decade ... by a lot

• He ranked fourth in total assists and 10th in total rebounds

• He was the only player in the top 10 in points, rebounds and assists

James is the greatest basketball player since Jordan, and most of his prime fell squarely in the 2010s. He began this decade as a 25-year-old NBA superstar with one Finals appearance and zero championships. He will end it as a 35-year-old global icon with nine Finals appearances, three titles and three Finals MVP awards. When we look back at his incredible career, we will look back mostly at the 2010s.

Not only did James appear in the NBA Finals every season between 2011 and 2018 but he also was arguably the best player in every one of those series. In addition, the dude racked up more than 1,500 more buckets than Stephen Curry and James Harden and 500 more than Kevin Durant.

LeBron received nearly every first-place vote available from our panel, and that's how it should be. Don't get me wrong -- Durant and Curry are marvelous, game-changing megastars, but neither of them controlled this decade nearly as much as James. He is deeply intertwined with every major trend this decade on and off the court.

Although the rise of 3-point shooting is the definitive on-court trend of the 2010s -- and Curry is the definitive shooter of our time -- that's only part of the story. Curry made an astronomical 2,483 3-pointers during the 2010s. Harden ranked second with 2,025. But, in that same time period, James assisted on 2,107 triples, by far the most in the NBA. So while Curry might deserve all the credit in the world for changing how we look at long-range shooting this decade, James deserves some for changing the way we look at long-range shot creation. His play is integral to the tactics driving the trend.

Durant is a better pure scorer than James, and Curry is a better pure shooter, but James is a more complete superstar. When you consider his playoff success and the stat totals, it's virtually impossible to argue any other player was as dominant on the court.

Oh, and James has made First-Team All-Defense three times this decade, too. Neither Curry nor Durant has ever done that.

James wasn't simply the league's most impactful player on the court. Off the floor, he reshaped how we look at superstardom and player movement in pro sports. If you're searching for the origin of contemporary player empowerment in the NBA and beyond, look no further than July 8, 2010, in Greenwich, Connecticut. His televised free-agency decision might have been kind of clumsy, but it was unquestionably the seminal moment for a decade in which dozens of the game's biggest talents all seemed to switch teams, demand trades and join forces in ways we'd never seen before.

Before King James shocked the world in 2010 and took his talents to South Beach, July was a sleepy month on the NBA calendar. Nowadays the league sets its phones on fire for two straight weeks with breaking news bombs in ways that would be incomprehensible to basketball fans in the pre-LeBron era.

In the end, it's the overwhelming breadth and relentlessness of James' greatness that make him the most definitive player of the 2010s.

2. Stephen Curry

Team

• Golden State Warriors: 2009-19

Kevin Pelton: When the 2010s began, LeBron James was an easy choice as the decade's best player. He had already led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals and won his first MVP before celebrating his 26th birthday. Stephen Curry's future was far less clear. Back when the calendar turned from 2009 to 2010, Curry was a rookie who was averaging 11.8 points per game through the first two months of his NBA career while taking a back seat to backcourt-mate Monta Ellis.

Sure, Curry had already made a name for himself in college by leading Davidson to the 2008 Elite Eight. But skepticism persisted over whether a skinny, 6-foot-3 guard who relied on 3-pointers could become a star in the NBA even before recurring ankle injuries put Curry's career in jeopardy early in the decade. After all, he was the seventh pick in the 2009 NBA draft, going behind two players -- Jonny Flynn and Hasheem Thabeet -- who have long since washed out of the league.

Fast-forward a decade, and the NBA has been remade in Curry's image. Back in 2009, 3-point attempts seemed to have stalled out at about 22% of all NBA shots. Over the past five years, 3-pointers have increased at a faster rate than at any point aside from when the league briefly moved the line in to 22 feet, reaching more than 36% of shot attempts last season. And pace of play has skyrocketed from 94.1 possessions per 48 minutes in 2008-09 to 102.4 last season.

It's not just that 3s are up. Specifically, Curry has helped popularize 3-pointers off the dribble (up almost 50% as a percentage of all shots between the first season for which camera-tracking data is available and 2018-19, per Second Spectrum data) and shots from beyond 30 feet (attempts from 30-40 feet are up nearly 250% between 2008-09 and 2018-19, according to Basketball-Reference.com).

Most of that change has occurred over the five seasons since Curry went from budding star to two-time MVP, leading the Warriors to three championships in the process. Other teams have sought to imitate the style that made Golden State so great, which starts with Curry being a threat teams have to account for anywhere beyond midcourt.

Having joined the Bill Russell-era Boston Celtics as the second team to reach five consecutive NBA Finals, the Warriors are the team of the decade. And nobody has been more important to their success than Curry, who has played two different roles for Golden State.

At first, Curry was the focal point of a team that came out of nowhere to win the 2015 championship and an NBA-record 73 games the next season. He won back-to-back MVP awards, the latter as the first unanimous selection in league history and as one of just four players all decade -- a group that doesn't include LeBron, believe it or not -- to average at least 30 points per game for a season.

After the Warriors lost to James' Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals, with the MCL sprain Curry suffered earlier in the playoffs helping limit his output, he changed his game to accommodate Kevin Durant's arrival via free agency. It was Curry, not Durant, who was forced to adjust by playing less frequently with the ball in his hands and taking fewer shots. He sacrificed a chance at additional MVPs in the name of team success and was rewarded with two more championship rings.

Although we'll look back on LeBron as the decade's best player, Curry's rise best symbolizes where the NBA appears headed as skill and speed gain favor over size and strength. While those trends had begun with rules changes in the previous decade, it took a player as singularly capable of exploiting them as Curry to open the league's eyes to what now seems possible.

3. Kevin Durant

Teams

• Oklahoma City Thunder: 2009-16

• Golden State Warriors: 2016-19

Tim Bontemps: Kevin Durant would deserve this spot based on his incredible on-court production alone -- one MVP, two Finals MVPs, four scoring championships. But by factoring in all the ramifications from his decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder and join the Golden State Warriors as a free agent in 2016, he becomes a lock as a defining player of the decade.

LeBron made a somewhat similar decision to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat in 2010. It was a pioneering move that changed NBA free agency and leaguewide player movement. Yet consider all the ways Durant's choice to team up with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green completely reshaped the NBA.

There isn't a comparison in league history for a player of Durant's caliber choosing to join a team that was already better than the rest of the competition. Durant, Curry, Thompson and Green combined to give the Warriors four of the top 20 players in the NBA -- a quartet of stars that simply overwhelmed the opposition en route to a pair of titles even while rarely looking fully engaged. They confidently trailed at halftime of Games 6 and 7 of the 2018 Western Conference finals before dispatching the Houston Rockets. They felt inevitable until wear, tear and injuries caught up to them this past season.

Beyond the accomplishments in Golden State -- and his many accolades in OKC at the beginning of the decade -- consider the ripple effects from KD's stunning move:

• The Thunder appeared set to battle the Warriors for West supremacy for the next several seasons after their epic 2016 playoff matchup. Instead, OKC has yet to win another postseason series. Now Russell Westbrook is in Houston and the team could be headed toward a full rebuild.

• In 2015, James and the Cavaliers gave the Warriors all they could handle after Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving suffered season-ending injuries. In 2016, Cleveland came back from down 3-1 in the Finals to win the city's first championship in any sport in 50 years. Under normal circumstances, the Cavs might have earned another title (don't forget how good that 2017 team looked rolling through the East). Instead, Durant's arrival eliminated Cleveland's chances. Within two years, Irving had demanded a trade and James had left for Los Angeles.

• In 2017, the league and the players' association agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that included the designated veteran extension, otherwise known as the supermax. It was supposed to help teams like OKC keep players like Durant. Instead, there has been a steady stream of players who -- of their own volition (Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis) or their team's (Jimmy Butler, DeMarcus Cousins and Kemba Walker) -- have gone elsewhere anyway.

• The LA Clippers shifted into asset-collection mode and away from their star-studded roster -- beginning with the Chris Paul trade in the summer of 2017 -- after seeing they had no chance of beating Golden State. If the Warriors don't add Durant, maybe a version of that Clippers squad is still together.

• And now, after the Toronto Raptors' championship and Durant's departure for the Brooklyn Nets, the power dynamic in the league looks more balanced. Seeing their opportunity to strike after hoarding assets during Golden State's reign, teams made huge, win-now moves during a seismic summer. The list of real contenders runs deeper than it has at any time since Durant left OKC.

No other single decision has had so many ripple effects on the rest of the NBA.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuela's winter baseball league is delaying the start of its season for the first time in decades after Major League Baseball banned its players from participating.

The Venezuelan League of Professional Baseball said in a statement Tuesday that it had agreed to postpone play for nearly three weeks to Nov. 5.

It didn't give a reason for the shortened season, but the announcement comes after the Trump administration prohibited Americans from doing business with President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government, which sponsors the league through state-run oil giant PDVSA.

The league's new president has vowed to try to reverse the ban. He argues that the privately run league is one of the few institutions that brings together Venezuelans of all political persuasions and shouldn't be punished by U.S. sanctions.

The Venezuelan Winter League is one of many that major league players use to hone their skills in the offseason.

Right-hander Aaron Sanchez, who combined with three relievers to throw a no-hitter in his first start for the Houston Astros on Aug. 3, has undergone season-ending surgery on his throwing shoulder.

Astros manager A.J. Hinch said Wednesday that Sanchez had the surgery last week in California and indicated that his rehabilitation and recovery time likely will extend into next season.

The 27-year-old hasn't pitched since Aug. 20 because of what the team said was a sore right pectoral muscle. The team had expected him to return this season, but general manager Jeff Luhnow said last week that he would need the procedure on his right shoulder and wouldn't return this year.

Sanchez, who is 5-14 with a 5.89 ERA and 115 strikeouts this season, was acquired from Toronto in a trade on July 31.

Also on Wednesday, Hinch said that shortstop Carlos Correa would get a day off for Wednesday's series finale against Texas as the Astros ease him back into playing every day after he sat out almost a month. Alex Bregman will get the start at shortstop, and Aledmys Diaz will start at third.

David Price will not pitch again for the Red Sox this season, Boston manager Alex Cora said Wednesday.

Price has only made a single two-inning start since early August while dealing with a cyst in his wrist.

Cora said he expects the left-hander will have a procedure to address the issue before the end of the season with the goal of being healthy in time for next season.

"We need this guy healthy and ready to go," Cora said of Price.

The Red Sox (79-71) are nine games out of a wild-card spot with 12 games to play and can be eliminated from playoff contention as early as Thursday.

NEW YORK -- Giancarlo Stanton, who has played just nine games this season because of knee issues, has returned to the starting lineup with the Yankees on the cusp of clinching a division title.

Stanton was activated from the 60-day injured list and will bat fifth and play left field against the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night. He has been out since June 25 after straining the posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. He's played just nine games this season due to various injuries and is returning with 10 days remaining in the regular season.

The Yankees can lock up the AL East on Wednesday night by beating the Angels or with a loss by Tampa Bay.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Stanton would probably get two at-bats and play four or five innings in the field Wednesday. If all goes well, he could be the designated hitter for a full game Thursday.

"Just building him up," said Boone, who plans to play Stanton regularly down the stretch to progress his timing and durability as October approaches.

Stanton, the 2017 NL MVP with Miami, is hitting .290 with one home run and seven RBIs. The 29-year-old slugger, in his second season with the Yankees, had been working out at the team's minor league complex in Tampa, Florida.

Stanton will be used at designated hitter and in left field. New York has rotated a number of players through the latter, especially since Mike Tauchman strained his left calf this month. Tauchman was expected to miss six to eight weeks.

With Stanton activated, reliever Dellin Betances was added to the 60-day IL just three days after his season debut. Betances partially tore the Achilles tendon in his left foot when he hopped on the mound Sunday at Toronto. Surgery has not been recommended but is still possible. Betances will get a second opinion.

The right-handed Betances had previously been out with an impingement in his pitching shoulder.

Pittsburgh Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez admitted to police that he tried to have sex with a 13-year-old girl and sent her nude photographs and videos of himself committing sexual acts, according to a criminal complaint released Wednesday by Pennsylvania State Police.

Vazquez, 28, was arrested Tuesday and charged with six counts in Pennsylvania and Florida, including multiple felonies, related to his contact with the now-16-year-old girl. A judge denied him bail in Pennsylvania, where the charges filed include statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of a minor and indecent assault.

Police said Vazquez met the girl while in the bullpen at PNC Park in Pittsburgh and communicated with her through text messages and social media. Vazquez, according to the complaint, "claimed initially that he refused to communicate with her due to her age," saying the girl appeared to be 16 or younger.

Vazquez told police he exchanged nude photos and videos with the girl, who was then 13, and drove to her home in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, about an hour outside of Pittsburgh. When Vazquez, then 26, arrived, the girl got into his car. She told police he pulled down her pants and tried to have sex with her.

Vazquez attempted to have sex with the girl, he told police, but he said he needed to leave because he had a game that night, according to the complaint.

Vazquez admitted to later sending more text messages to the girl.

The charges in Pennsylvania followed two charges in Florida, where the girl and her family now live, for soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using a computer or device and giving obscene material to a minor. The girl's mother found photographs allegedly sent from Vazquez on her daughter's device and called police, spurring the investigation.

Major League Baseball placed Vazquez on administrative leave after the arrest and is awaiting further information from police before considering disciplinary actions.

Jonnie Peacock, Libby Clegg and Hannah Cockroft among athletes on 43-strong British team for global event in Dubai in November

A British team of 43 athletes has been selected to compete at the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai in November.

A total of 11 reigning world champions from London 2017 feature in the squad, including 10-time world gold medallist Hannah Cockroft, grand slam champions Hollie Arnold and Sophie Hahn and two-time Paralympic gold medallists Aled Davies, Jonnie Peacock and Richard Whitehead.

Also among the returning world champions are Olivia Breen, Kadeena Cox, Sophie Kamlish, Sammi Kinghorn and Stef Reid.

Making her return to global competition after the birth of her son, Edward, in April, is double Paralympic champion Libby Clegg, who will be guided in the T11 200m by Thomas Somers.

Dan Greaves will not be competing, however, as the discus thrower has been ruled out of attending his seventh world championships due to injury.

? Pains me to write this but unfortunately due to injury I won’t be attending my 7th World Championships in Dubai in November.

Gutted that my body failed my mind!

Times like these are extremely annoying but sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture

Health is Happiness pic.twitter.com/VSO5ukrT9g

— Dan Greaves (@DiscusDan) September 17, 2019

Race Running makes its debut at the World Para Athletics Championships after featuring at last year’s European Championships, where the British team secured two titles and four medals.

Rafi Solaiman and Kayleigh Haggo will headline the RR3 100m, with European champion Gavin Drysdale and Ellie Simpson also among the best in the world over the discipline.

Sprinter Ola Abidogun earns his first British vest since the IPC European Championships in Swansea in 2014. The 2012 Paralympic silver medallist, who balances a career as a solicitor alongside his athletics, will race in the T47 100m and form part of the universal 4x100m relay squad.

“I am delighted to be able to select a team of 43 for the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai,” said British Athletics’ para athletics head coach, Paula Dunn.

“The event is a key competition in the cycle as well the final opportunity to take on the best in the world at a global championship before Tokyo, and I’m really excited to see how this team performs in two months’ time.

“Alongside this, we have four athletes making their senior debuts for the British squad and I’m very pleased to see them joining this team after demonstrating they are ready for this level of competition. It is testament to their hard work and progress during the season.”

She added: “We enjoyed our best ever world championships at the biggest edition of the event in London two years ago, but we are not complacent. Para-athletics is ever evolving and athletes from all countries have continued to improve since then. I expect our team to step up and show their ability on the international stage.”

British team for the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai, November 7-15

Women
Kare Adenegan – T34 100m & 800m
Hollie Arnold – F46 javelin
Martina Barber – T20 long jump
Olivia Breen – T38 long jump & 100m
Jo Butterfield – F51 club throw
Lydia Church – F12 shot put
Libby Clegg (guide runner: Thomas Somers) – T11 200m & universal 4x100m relay
Hannah Cockroft – T34 100m & 800m
Kadeena Cox – T38 200m & 400m
Sabrina Fortune – F20 shot put
Kayleigh Haggo – RR3 100m
Sophie Hahn – T38 100m, 200m & universal 4x100m relay
Sophie Kamlish – T64 100m
Sammi Kinghorn – T53 100m & universal 4x100m relay
Maria Lyle – T35 100m & 200m
Anna Nicholson – F35 shot put
Stef Reid – T64 long jump
Ellie Simpson – RR3 100m
Ali Smith – T38 100m, 400m & universal 4x100m relay
Hannah Taunton – T20 1500m
Vanessa Wallace – F34 shot put

Men
Ola Abidogun – T47 100m & universal 4x100m relay
Paul Blake– T36 400m & 800m
Jonathan Broom-Edwards – T64 high jump
Mickey Bushell – T53 100m
Richard Chiassaro – T54 100m, 400m, 800m & 1500m
Aled Davies – F63 shot put
Gavin Drysdale – RR3 100m
Kyron Duke – F41 shot put
Jordan Howe – T35 100m
Harri Jenkins – T33 100m
Nathan Maguire – T54 100m, 400m, 800m & universal 4x100m relay
Owen Miller – T20 1500m
Jonnie Peacock – T64 100m & universal 4x100m relay
Ben Rowlings – T34 100m, 400m & 800m
Luke Sinnott – T63 long jump & T61 200m
Zak Skinner – T13 long jump & universal 4x100m relay
Andrew Small – T33 100m
Rafi Solaiman – RR3 100m
Isaac Towers – T34 400m & 800m
Richard Whitehead – T61 200m
Thomas Young – T38 100m

Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo has said he deserves to end his career with more Ballon d'Or awards than Barcelona's Lionel Messi and hopes to establish himself as the greatest player of all time.

Ronaldo, 34, has won the renowned France Football magazine trophy for the world's best player five times -- as many as Messi -- but is eager for more as he moves into the twilight of his career.

- Champions League group stage: All you need to know
- ESPN Champions League fantasy: Sign up now!

"Messi's in the history of football," Ronaldo told broadcaster Piers Morgan in an interview with Britain's ITV on Tuesday.

"But I think I have to have six or seven or eight to be above him," he said, referring to the Ballon d'Or awards.

"I'd love it, I think I deserve it."

The Portugal captain said he was no friend of the Argentine but credited his rival for helping push him further in his own career.

"My relationship with him is, we are not friends, but we have shared this stage for 15 years," Ronaldo said. "I know that he has pushed me to be a better player and I have pushed him to be a better player as well."

Ronaldo, who also played for Manchester United and Real Madrid, has five Champions League winners' medals and led Portugal to victory at the 2016 European Championship and 2019 Nations League tournaments.

"I don't follow the records, the records follow me. I'm addicted to the success, and I don't think it's something bad, I think it's good," Ronaldo said.

"It motivates me. If you're not motivated, it's better to stop."

This should be about the game. About a club, Paris Saint-Germain, taking yet another crack at winning the biggest prize in club football after three straight seasons of controversial exits by wafer-thin margins. And their visitors Real Madrid, the game's ultimate blue bloods, halfway in rebuild mode as they pursue their 14th European Cup as an antidote to consecutive nightmarish domestic seasons.

But it's not. It's the Dysfunction Derby between two icebergs with far too much going on beneath the surface.

Real Madrid finished third in La Liga last year and the year before, by an average of 19 points: way off the pace of the eventual champions in both seasons, Barcelona. The unprecedented Champions League three-peat alleviated some of the rancour but most expected a revamp, particularly after the departures of Ronaldo and the resignation of Zinedine Zidane in the summer of 2018.

Instead, Zidane is back and rather than a rebuild, we've had a minor tweaking, with Eden Hazard and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois (who arrived last summer and has been less than stellar at times) the only flashy newcomers. Nine of their 10 most frequently used outfield players thus far were also there for the first of their three straight Champions League titles; the other, Vinicius Junior, doesn't turn 20 until next summer.

- Laurens: Don't expect PSG to succeed in Europe this year
- Summer of unwanted stars: Why Bale, Neymar didn't move
- Ogden: Breaking down the Champions League groups

PSG was supposed to be the rising, Qatar-fueled force in European football, boasting both the heir apparent to the Cristiano Ronaldo-Lionel Messi duopoly (Neymar) and the next in line (Kylian Mbappe). The former tried every which way to leave, the latter is injured. As for the Qatari cash, it may have moved the needle until two seasons back but now, because of FFP and overly optimistic financial projections, they're forced to break even like any old mom-and-pop operation.

Just this past weekend Neymar, the most expensive player in the history of the game, finally made his return to action for PSG and was met with a cacophony of boos, insults and banners inviting him to get the hell out. Which, of course, he would have been only too happy to do if the club had reached a deal to send him back to Barcelona. Instead, as Neymar himself pointed out, PSG "blocked" the move. (Or, because every story is its own Rashomon with multiple sides, "refused to sell a star player for less than they thought he was worth.")

Neymar, though, is nothing if not a pro. A maddening, infuriating, occasionally liberty-taking pro with a weird tendency to pick up injuries around the time of his sister's birthday, but a pro nonetheless. And one who can conjure magic out of thin air, as he did deep in an injury-time with a highlight-reel buzzer-beater that earned PSG a win over Strasbourg.

(He won't be involved on Wednesday -- a result of the ban he received for an expletive-ridden Instagram post berating referees after PSG were eliminated from the Champions League last year -- but his shadow will continue to loom large over the club's fortunes this season.)

Less than 24 hours later and some 600 miles away, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez faced the club's annual general meeting amid murmurs and discontent. "People say I know about numbers, but if there's something I know about, it's football!" said Perez. "There are clubs who win a league and then don't win anything in Europe for God-knows-how-many-years. And why are we great? Because we've won the European Cup 13 times."

Perez also had to fend off a question from the floor about club captain Sergio Ramos. The Spanish defender contributed greatly to four of those cups, most recently 16 months ago, but to some he's become a distraction and Ramos himself had to call a news conference last May to announce that he was going nowhere. Perez's questioner lamented Ramos' passion for social media, outside projects (like the Amazon fly-on-the-wall documentary about himself) and the fact that he "wore a pink hat that made him look like a Swedish tourist."

Tumultuous doesn't quite do the situation justice at either club. We crossed the "entertainment brand" rubicon years ago, so perhaps the above shouldn't be entirely surprising. But there's the collateral damage that comes (along with, let's face it, collateral revenue via sponsors and brand recognition) from hoarding superstars: both clubs' rosters groan under the weight of hefty veteran contracts they can't shed and the self-inflicted hurt these clubs brought upon themselves.

Then there's the fact that few saw this coming a year ago, which only makes this worse for both clubs.

PSG are on a knife-edge in terms of Financial Fair Play, UEFA rules that regulate each club's spending. This year and last, PSG's roster has been made up of a core of pricey superstars -- Angel Di Maria, Thiago Silva, Edinson Cavani, Marquinhos -- but also a smattering of youngsters and blue-collar role players. Guys like, say, Colin Dagba, who is 21 and made his top-flight debut only last year, or Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, who made 31 appearances last year after joining from Stoke, a side that finished second-bottom in the Premier League the year before. It's also why, after years of free spending, they actually made a profit in the summer transfer window, padding out the squad with free agents (Ander Herrera from Manchester United), swaps (signing goalkeeper Keylor Navas from Real Madrid and sending Alphonse Areola the other way) and loans (Mauro Icardi from Inter).

- The definitive story of Neymar's failed Barcelona return
- Sign up and play our Champions League fantasy game

Navas and Herrera were on the bench for most of last season and Icardi was unwanted by Inter to the point that he was suspended for six weeks in the middle of the season last year and was told, publicly and repeatedly, his services were no longer needed. All three are pedigreed veterans with a chip on their shoulder and you can see the logic in tapping into their desire to resurrect their careers. But, perhaps most crucially, all three were also cheap.

Real Madrid had the opposite sort of summer, lavishing nearly $250 million on four players: defenders Ferland Mendy and Eder Militao, winger Hazard and forward Luka Jovic. The problem is that we haven't seen much of them yet -- between them, they've started just one game -- which makes it hard to get overly excited. Much of that has to do with injuries (Hazard only made his debut on Saturday) but much of it has to do with the fact that this is a side in flux.

Zidane has rotated systems and personnel and you should expect to see more of the same in Paris: Ramos is suspended while Marcelo, Isco, Marco Asensio and Luka Modric, stalwarts of the previous Champions League run, are all injured.

What Madrid fans have seen plenty of instead this season are Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez, two players they spent most of the summer trying to shed. Bale, one of the highest-paid players in the world, was told flat out by Zidane he was surplus to requirements. But unwilling to take a pay cut -- and with nobody wanting to match his $30 million-plus annual salary and pay a transfer fee -- he went nowhere.

Bale, whose performances have ranged from stellar to anonymous to M.I.A. (due to frequent injuries), was often harangued by fans and media alike for such crimes as failing to learn decent Spanish and being too obsessed with golf. (He has a nine-hole course in his ample backyard and some of his injuries have been blamed on his practice swings.) But when Zidane realized he was stuck with him, he took his lemons and made lemonade: Bale started Real Madrid's first three games and he, like James, has been one of the better performers.

Bottom line? Things have not been what either side expected and maybe that's at the heart of the discomfort and restlessness among fans of the two clubs.

In these situations, the Champions League is a respite, albeit a double-edged one. A strong performance and a result and you can start to spin the narrative in your direction. If you're PSG, you remind folks that Mbappe will be back (though not on Wednesday: he's sidelined as are Edinson Cavani and Julian Draxler). And if you're Madrid, you sell the line that you're still the Gold Standard in Europe, that Zidane is still the alchemist Galactico whisperer and that Hazard is, in fact, a game-changer.

But there's a downside, too. Take a beating and it's more salt in the open sores. Restlessness and discomfort live in the same neighbourhood as frustration and anger.

For both these clubs, it's time to get out of town.