Ultimately and with a sense of unspeakable cruelty, history asked for more than Rangers were able to give.
Having travelled so far and been backed by such numbers, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his players found the door to sporting immortality slammed in their faces without an ounce of compassion.
A penalty miss by the man who was brought to the club to be the difference maker at the end of a penalty shoot-out will be the defining moment of Aaron Ramsey ’s short, unsatisfactory stay at Ibrox.
And that sums up the savagery of what took place in Seville.
Just when one last leap into the land of the legends was required, their Welshman’s legs buckled beneath him.
And Rangers were taken down at the knees by an Eintracht Frankfurt team who claimed this destiny for their own.
The heartbreak suffered was confirmation that history can be the most wicked temptress of them all.
Beckoning them forward with a seductive curl of a finger but never letting them get close enough to actually reach out and take it.
After the heroics they have put into this surge across the continent, the tear-stained ending to the final chapter seemed almost inhumane.
It doesn’t get any more excruciating but now that a once-in-a-lifetime dream has been shattered by the rudest awakening, they must find a way to recover.
To get home and to get over it.
If they can’t quite make it back in one piece, if they leave a part of themselves among the ticker tape strewn across the playing surface of the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium, they might find that even more torment is waiting to ambush them at Hampden.
On Saturday, the final act of a monumental campaign will be played out to the death.
Granted, the Scottish Cup might seem like scant consolation right now as they come to terms with the pain of missing out on a European crown. But better that than nothing at all.
Hearts will beg to differ and nor should it be any other way – it’s their job to pile on the agony – but in any other world, this would seem like a cruelty too many.
That last night’s final task had to be confronted without a recognised striker was just another reason to lengthen the odds, which had stacked up against Rangers from the start.
Yes, Kemar Roofe was passed fit to play at the 11th hour after missing a month of action.
But having spent so long on the treatment table, this was hardly the time or the place to throw him into the fire.
With temperatures touching 40 degrees throughout a scorching afternoon, the 29-year-old had to content himself with a seat in the shade offered by van Bronckhorst’s dugout.
Rather than risk his only fit centre-forward to burnout, the manager stuck to his semi-final guns, selecting the same XI that did for RB Leipzig last time around. That meant Joe Aribo leading the line, flanked by Ryan Kent and Scott Wright.
The decision did nothing to dampen the spirit of the Rangers fans who had been gathering inside this stadium, packing themselves into its every nook and cranny since late afternoon.
The atmosphere they whipped up reached fever pitch for the warm-up. By kick-off time the noise was coming up through its foundations.
Soon all the volume was coming from the Eintracht end and, amid the din, Rangers looked a little startled by the enormity
of the occasion.
Sloppy in possession, loose with their passing and slow to get started all over the pitch, they allowed Frankfurt to get on the front foot.
As the tension mounted, so did the activity inside Allan McGregor’s box.
The 40-year-old keeper clutched one shot from Djibril Sow then finger-tipped another from Ansgar Knauff around the base of his left-hand post.
In fact, the first half-hour was a test of Rangers’ endurance and McGregor’s resolve. But as half-time loomed, it did feel as
if van Bronckhorst’s side were finally getting some sort of foothold in this final and, for the first time, advancing deeper into Frankfurt territory.
Even so, Kent was being double bagged by defenders every time the ball came down his left flank.
Still, John Lundstram had a lopping header touched over the top as the pressure mounted and collectively the Rangers support began to find their voice.
Already, though, this was shaping up to be a long and utterly exhausting night – emotionally as well as physically.
Rangers were being forced to go back to the well but by half-time it was van Bronckhorst’s job to establish how much was left at the bottom of it.
He chose to stick rather than twist and turn to his bench.
But the second half began in much the same way as the first had, Rangers avoiding catastrophe when Connor Goldson got away with late contact on Rafael Santos Borre inside the box.
Then the moment arrived, almost completely out of the blue, when Goldson won a towering header, Brazilian defender Tuta slipped as he turned to chase it down and Aribo raced clear to slide home.
But this rollercoaster was never going to end in such a straightforward fashion. And so, when the Germans levelled with 20 minutes to spare through Borre’s smart finish, Rangers were back tiptoeing along the brink.
Van Bronckhorst reacted by sending for the experience of Steven Davis and the searing
pace of Fashion Sakala.
Deep breaths all round the order of the day as this contest hurtled into extra-time and on to a shoot-out.
Of course it did.
James Tavernier, Davis, Scott Arfield and Roofe hit the back of the Eintracht net.
But Ramsey’s miss will haunt this club long after his time here is up.
