Lionel Messi will make his return to Spain on Wednesday when Paris Saint-Germain takes on Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, the site of some of his most memorable performances before moving to Paris.
However, at the age of 34, a player who dominated the sport for over a decade alongside Cristiano Ronaldo returns to the Spanish capital despite only scoring seven times in 24 appearances for PSG this season.
Messi's PSG teammate Kylian Mbappe scored a fantastic goal to give the French giants a first-leg advantage back at the Parc des Princes, and the 23-year-old isn't the only player vying to replace Messi and Ronaldo at the top of the game.
Are we entering a new age in the struggle for football's major individual honours, with Mohamed Salah, Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski, and Neymar all contending for the title of world's best?
I believe we have already entered that period "Jamie Carragher, a Sky Sports pundit, agrees. "Messi won the last Ballon d'Or, but I believe that will be the last time we see Messi or Ronaldo win that award; I believe the next generation is ready to take over."
Gary Neville, a Sky Sports pundit, adds: "For the first time in years, if you asked people who they would recruit if they could only sign one player in the world, no one would reply Messi or Ronaldo. Instead, they would most likely state Mbappe, Haaland, Salah, Lewandowski
You'd be picking players other than Ronaldo and Messi, which is the clearest indication that, while they're still at the top of their game, they're declining from their previous heights.
"They aren't the best players in the world anymore."
Anyone who witnessed either of Lionel Messi's assists in PSG's recent 3-1 victory against St Etienne at the Parc des Princes knows the old magic is still alive and well.
For the first, he slid inside from the right wing and set up Mbappe with a spectacular reverse pass.
After weaving past a swarm of green-shirted defenders on the edge of the box, he set up the same guy for the second.
Those flashes of brilliance led to 10 assists in Ligue 1 this season, tied for second most in the league, but his goal production has dipped substantially for the first time in his career.
In the Champions League, there have been five in six games, but only two in 17 in Ligue 1. It's uncharted territory for a player who averaged more than 30 each season in league games alone at Barcelona.
"It was always going to be a lot harder," Carragher adds. "A new country, a new team," says the narrator.
