In amongst all of the discourse and the controversy of events last night, it was easy to forget that two giants of the world game played their last ever match of Champions League football.Xabi Alonso and Philipp Lahm both announced in recent weeks that they will be calling time on their respective careers and last night's clash at the Santiago Bernabeu was their last foray into the competition.It's not the way their last involvement in the competition should have gone down, with the poor performance of the officials overshadowing much of the action, leaving the pair just a month of football left before they call it time.Both players are legends in their own right, but whereas Lahm has spent his entire career in one country, Alonso has been spreading his magic all over Europe with those from Bayern, Liverpool and even Real having had the opportunity to see him up close.The World Cup winning midfielder spent five years at Real Madrid before linking up with Bayern in the summer of 2014 and clearly made an impression there.During his time with Los Blancos he picked up one La Liga title, two Copa Del Rey trophies, one Supercopa de España and one Champions League, scoring six goals in a total of 236 appearances.It's fair to say that the fans have a few fond memories of him, and that's without mentioning the World Cup he helped Spain win during his time at the club.So as he exited the pitch last night, the whole stadium rose in appreciation of his talents to give him a spine-tingling round of applause.

It's difficult not to feel emotional after watching that. Players like Alonso are one in a million and the game just won't be the same without him.

Real fans are lucky that they managed to snap him up after he revealed this week that he could have signed for Barcelona before joining them, only for Sergio Busquets' emerge to put the breaks on the deal.

With just five games of the Bundesliga season – as well as Alonso's career – attention turns back to domestic matters to ensure that they don't slip up during the remaining games to claim another league title.

Bayern is currently top of the table, eight points ahead of nearest rivals Red Bull Leipzig, and though they aren't likely to miss out on claiming another title, it would be catastrophic if they somehow let their lead slip.