The Warm-Up: Leicester's hard Brexit; relentless Ronaldo; Harry's back

It was the night Leicester City finally turned back into a pumpkin.

Despite a stirring second-half onslaught, Leicester never looked like unseating Atletico Madrid and resume their place among the ranks of ordinary football clubs.

Their run to the last eight was the best performance of any English side and not merely a heartwarming sideshow – but it was good they went out on a high, especially as they probably won’t be back for decades.

After the events in Spain last week, this is how Leicester’s Champions League campaign should be remembered.

The pre-match tifo and flags might feel a bit plastic, but nothing about the atmosphere at the King Power Stadium does.

The club’s exit spares Madrid another visit from a shirtless mob singing about Gibraltar, while the majority of Leicester fans are safe from further reputational damage from baying idiots.

Britain’s representation in continental competition is down to one – a Manchester United slip on Thursday, and we can forget about Europe altogether and concentrate on tearing ourselves apart.

Cristiano Ronaldo completed a century of Champions League goals with a perfect hat-trick to knock out Bayern Munich last night.

This was the very essence of Ronaldo. A devastatingly effective big-game performance, yet somehow it felt like it was missing something – and the Warm-Up doesn’t mean two offside flags.

Ronaldo is not the spectacular player he was – he is a ruthless goalscoring machine, but so extreme is his focus on putting ball in net that he has no time for flair.

A player who made his name with stepovers and elaborate flourishes now barely ever needs more than two touches to kill you.

It’s not really a complaint, and it’s certainly not a compare-and-contrast with any other potential best player in the world.

But, at the risk of reading too much into Gary Lineker’s choice of words, there’s a reason why it’s always ‘The remarkable Ronaldo's hat-trick’ and not ‘Ronaldo’s remarkable hat-trick’.

Anyway, he’s scored 100 more Champions League goals than the Warm-Up ever will, so we’ll pipe down.

Say what you like about Theresa May’s decision to call a snap General Election, but at least it saved us a full morning of ‘Announce Kranjcar’ Twitter jokes.

Because, you know, why not name Harry Redknapp as your new manager three games from the end of your relegation battle?

Guillem Balague’s trip to Leicester ended up a bit like a 1960s documentary on a remote Amazon tribe.

First we had the naive optimism of a man searching vainly for a late-night jazz scene (on a Bank Holiday Monday, no less).

Responses included “Get 4 cans and put the radio on in the car,” “get a cab to Birmingham” and this, which elicited a po-faced explanation of what makes Guillem civilised.

In Leicester, the cab drivers talk b*****ks.

And finally, a dictator enjoying untold riches while the locals wallow in filth.

And this from a man who spends much of his time in Biggleswade.

We’re being charitable here, since Paul Pogba has spent four years of his life in the city – but his Mancunian accent is... well, it’s not bad.

You might think that when you’ve won the World Cup, the Euros, six Liga titles and three Champions Leagues you’d feel secure enough not to get all passive-aggressive when a Real Madrid player scores a hat-trick.

See that patronising look of amused disbelief? A small taste of what you can look forward to on your next visit to an EU country.

Wednesday’s Warm-Up will stop linking to David Squires when Davis Squires stops being excellent.

Theory: our enjoyment of the Champions League is inversely proportional to the number of English teams left. Both these matches should be ace.