This was a game that finished as it started. Liverpool on the attack, Benfica struggling to cope. The gap in class evident and painful.
But in between, for a period of about 25 second half minutes or so, Benfica had raised themselves to energise their terrific home crowd and turn this in to frenetic, dramatic and very watchable European contest indeed.
You could argue that a team playing in the last eight of the Champions League should be able to engage fully with an opponent for longer than that, especially when playing at home. You would probably be right and the fact Benfica could not do that reflects their modest domestic standing – third in the Portuguese league – and tells us this tie is now all but over ahead of next week’s second leg at Anfield.