Mohamed Salah vs Nuno Mendes: it was always likely to be a decisive duel in Liverpool's Champions League last-16 tie with Paris Saint-Germain - and the presumption was that the Egyptian King would come out on top. After all, Salah was in Ballon d'Or-winning form going into the first leg at Parc des Princes, breaking one record after another as he almost singlehandedly turned the Premier League title race into a procession.
Of course, the 22-year-old Mendes had long been tipped for greatness, going all the way back to his emergence as a top teenage talent at Ruben Amorim's Sporting CP, but nullifying the threat posed by Salah for 90 minutes was proving an almost impossible task even for the game's most experienced defenders. Even when the winger was having an off-day, he was still scoring or creating goals.
However, Mendes didn't just hold his own against Salah, he "annihilated" him, as L'Equipe put it. Liverpool's talisman was a non-entity in Paris and fared little better in the return leg at Anfield, where his one decent goal-bound effort was brilliantly blocked by his new nemesis.
The question now, though, is whether Mendes can do just as effective a job on Bukayo Saka as he did on Salah when PSG take on Arsenal at the Emirates on Tuesday, as their battle could prove just as integral to this eagerly-awaited semi-final showdown...
