Bayern Munich staged only the second three-goal halftime comeback in club history to defeat Mainz 4-3 on Saturday, a result that preserved their aura of invincibility but exposed deep vulnerabilities three days before the Champions League semi-final first leg at Paris Saint-Germain. With the Bundesliga title long secured, Vincent Kompany rotated heavily, resting his first-choice spine. A first half of bewildering lethargy saw Mainz take a 3-0 lead through Sheraldo Becker’s strike and two further goals, prompting the Belgian coach to summon nearly €400 million in market value from the bench after the interval.

The introductions transformed the contest; two quick goals and a late winner averted a debacle that, viewed from Munich, would have been a psychological gift to a PSG side preparing under Luis Enrique. The French champions, who host Angers this weekend, now hold a six-point lead in Ligue 1 after Lens’s own dramatic fightback from three goals down to draw 3-3 at Brest, a result that effectively extinguishes any lingering title challenge from the north. Across the Rhine, Leverkusen navigated their own derby turbulence with a 2-1 win at Köln, an affair that triggered a post-match squabble over the arid pitch, with Leverkusen’s Kasper Hjulmand blaming the unwatered surface for his team’s sluggishness – a complaint Köln’s René Wagner briskly dismissed.

Meanwhile, RB Leipzig tightened their grip on third place with a 3-1 victory over struggling Union Berlin, a match overshadowed by a novel charity initiative that saw club boss Oliver Mintzlaff jog 21 kilometres on a treadmill behind the technical area to raise funds for the ‘Wings for Life World Run’. The stunt, greeted with bemusement in Saxony, provided a light-hearted counterpoint to Union’s deepening gloom under new coach Marie-Louise Eta, who remains winless. In the second tier, the relegation picture sharpened dramatically.

Fortuna Düsseldorf, under new manager Alexander Ende, thrashed Dynamo Dresden 3-1 to climb out of the drop zone, a turnaround that Ende’s admirers credited to his ‘firefighter’ instincts. Hertha BSC, by contrast, saw a goal and a penalty overturned by VAR in a 1-0 home loss to Holstein Kiel, leaving players and supporters bewildered by the interpretations of the handball rule. Preußen Münster’s 3-2 home defeat to Bielefeld in the Westphalian derby all but sealed their return to the third division, the home crowd’s misery compounded by the sight of the away end shimmering in their rivals’ colours after a choreographed display.

The weekend’s action, seen from London, confirms that Europe’s elite leagues are entering their final acts with familiar protagonists – yet the fragility on display in Mainz and the desperation in Düsseldorf suggest that narratives of inevitability remain perilous. Bayern will travel to Paris fortified by the knowledge that their reserves can engineer a rescue, but the lesson of the first hour will not be lost on PSG’s analysts: a high press can unstitch even the most gilded squad when its concentration wavers, and in a semi-final, that first-half torpor would be terminal.