Thibaut Courtois is key for Real Madrid these days. Can he lift them past PSG in Champions League?

Thibaut Courtois isn’t simply the world’s No. 1 goalkeeper. In fact, his imperious form is such that he’s easily among the top three or four footballers — any position, any club. Were the Ballon d’Or Award moved to this week instead of December, Courtois would be mighty close to becoming the first keeper to win it since the legendary Lev Yashin in 1963.

And, hypothetically, were Courtois to be the key to Real Madrid somehow knocking Paris Saint-Germain out of the Champions League on Wednesday, after Los Blancos played excruciatingly badly in the 1-0 first-leg defeat, he’d be a shoo-in to succeed Yashin 58 years later.

Just picture the scene: the big Belgian who gave up the sport — he was sick of it, aged 11, only to change his mind and abandon a potential volleyball career — is about to become the only Real Madrid keeper (ever, in all likelihood) to face a Lionel Messi-Kylian Mbappe-Neymar trident at the Santiago Bernabeu. About to face a mercurial front line of all-time great strikers who have racked up 197 Champions League goals between them.

It also means he’s about to face Messi, approaching an 11-year thorn in his flesh, for the 16th time.

The Argentine genius (and let’s have no arguments about that description) has scored 26 goals against Madrid and the last time he heard the Champions League anthem at the Bernabeu (2011), it inspired him so much that not only did he score twice, he tucked away one of the very best of his 759 goals so far.

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Courtois’ first encounter with Messi will be 11 years ago this September. It’s seared in his mind.

It was his eighth match for Atletico Madrid on loan from Chelsea, at age 19, and he was flying. He’d conceded just one goal for Los Rojiblancos in the previous seven, but was sent home with a 5-0 hammering and fell victim to a Messi hat-trick.

“Strangely, despite the 5-0 result,…