Rarely do games define themselves as quickly as Atalanta's quarterfinal knockout game against Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). As soon as the whistle blew, the Italians swooped on the ball, and Mario Pasalic and Duvan Zapata immediately started causing problems.

As Atalanta flooded the box to try and maximize their goal chances, PSG nicked the ball and got it to Neymar, who sprinted down the into his opponent's empty half and went one-on-one with the keeper - and sent his shot wide for one of the most incredible misses this season. Fernando Torres at Chelsea levels of inaccuracy.

This was the story of the entire first half. The Serie A squad piled bodies up the pitch, almost begging for PSG to try and counter and repeatedly tested goalkeeper Keylor Navas with shots from close range, short-range, inside and outside the box, wherever.

When PSG did try and make a break for it, they felt clumsy. Palpably lacking the options provided by Angel di Maria and Marco Verratti, they countered as if the pitch were a donut: they start in their box, Ander Herrera or Idrissa Gueye takes the ball down the wings and then somehow, someway, they get it to Neymar at the other end of the pitch, in front of Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Sportiello.

This lack of lateral play is what caused them to go 1-0 down in the 26th minute. Following another Neymar miss, Atalanta zigzagged the ball up to the PSG end. Having pulled the team apart, Zapata quickly cut the ball to the right, over to Pasalic who, dangerous from the off, curled a left-footed shot into the top corner of the goal, way out of Navas' reach.

The first sign of trouble for Atalanta is that PSG, a side not known for their mental resilience, didn't even flinch. Neymar was back on it and threatening the Atalanta goal as soon as play resumed. By the halftime whistle, PSG looked to be growing into the game and forcing the Italians to limit their bombing up the pitch to focus on crowding their own end instead.

During the break, PSG manager Thomas Tuchel likely told his men to switch it up and play like Atalanta. Neymar had been exceptional in cutting through their back lines and an absolute disaster when a chance appeared. Now, he was less alone upfront; PSG's backline moved higher up the field, not as far as Atalanta's, but enough to double up in areas where there was once only a single player.

Within five minutes, it was proving effective. Marten de Roon was booked in the 50th minute for fouling Neymar with a shirt tug. Two minutes later, Zapata joined him. PSG had succeeded in messing up Atalanta's rhythm and turned the tie into something more scrappy.

With phase one of the comeback – disruption – underway, phase two began on the hour mark as a recovered Kylian Mbappe was brought on to replace Pablo Sarabia and, ten minutes later on came Julian Draxler for Ander Herrera and Leandro Paredes for Gueye. Now it was time for the counterattack.

Value in football makes little sense anymore. According to Transfermarkt, the total market value of Atalanta is 266.5 million euros (about 315.3 million U.S. dollars) compared to PSG's is 801.45 million (about 948.3 million U.S. dollars). And yet this smaller team had spent an hour dominating the considerably larger one.

But the one area in which PSG's money will always give them an advantage is in volume. They can afford to have a deeper bench than their smaller opponents, they can afford to keep elite players like Mbappe (when fully fit) and Draxler on the sidelines until they are needed.

For the remainder of the game, Atalanta hung on and absorbed offense from what felt like a whole new team. Then in the 90th minute, when the French side was pounding the goal line, late substitution, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, crossed the ball to Neymar at the far Atalanta post knocks it down to Marqunihos for a tap in to make it 1-1 at full time.

Atalanta were shattered, and a minute later conceded their second. Thilo Kehrer to Neymar. Neymar to Mbappe. Mbappe to Choup-Moting. Goal, 2-1. In the span of a single game, PSG evolved from giving Neymar the ball, so he could pretend to be their Ronaldo to treating him as a playmaker within the team.

Atalanta manager Gian Piero Gasperini should be incredibly proud of his men. A loss in the dying moments will always be heartbreaking, but he should remember that his team were winning for 90 minutes – a whole game – and, if he can keep his squad together, they can learn from this and come back stronger next year.