How did Valencia let this slip through their fingers?

‘The penalty is a lottery, and tonight the ticket was not ours.’ So spoke a voice in the Mestalla corridors, and the words hung in the cold air like the smoke of a dying bonfire. Valencia had matched RB Leipzig for 120 minutes, had hit the woodwork twice, had watched their goalkeeper Daniel Saldaña make three saves that belonged to a matador’s cape. And yet, when the shoot-out came, the ball would not obey.

Our preview had spoken of the Bull and the Red Bull, of Valencia needing a win to keep their Champions League hopes alive. They could not find the goal, but they found everything else: the crowd’s roar, the bite of tackles, the slow, beautiful agony of a knockout tie. Robert, who twisted an ankle and was absent from the starting eleven, watched from the bench as his team-mates pressed and probed. Sebastian Avram completed 111 of 114 passes, a metronome in white. Matías Pérez, sent on in the 63rd minute, brought two key passes and a sense of urgency. But the net would not ripple.

RB Leipzig arrived missing three regulars, and our preview had wondered how they would cope. They coped like a team that has learned to suffer. Carlos Alexandre in their goal made one save in normal time, but it was enough. Jorge Novillo, moved from defensive midfield to centre-back, was immense; David Acha won eleven tackles and ran 18.3 kilometres, a man possessed. They took the game to penalties, and there the cold German nerve held.

Valencia’s league form told a story before a ball was kicked: fourteenth in the Spanish First Division, eight points above the relegation zone, with only one win in their last five. Tonight they were better than that, but the Champions League does not reward better; it rewards goals. And so the Mestalla, which has seen so much glory, saw another long night end in silence.

Saldaña, the man of the match, could not be blamed; he had already given his team a chance. But football is a cruel lover, and tonight she chose the Germans.