So no legendary tales were written in the Spanish capital on Wednesday night and there was to be no Hollywood blockbuster ending for Liverpool here at Santiago Bernabeu.
Hans Gruber is still prowling Nakatomi Plaza, the T-1000 remains at large and Real Madrid have advanced into the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The arch-rivals of Liverpool's European story under Jurgen Klopp will fight another day.
Mission Impossible, to continue the dated action-film references, was always likely to be just that for Klopp, even allowing for his and the team's history of unlikely continental comebacks. And so it proved.
