For almost half an hour, it contained the excitement and intensity of an arthouse French biopic. And that in itself was surprising.
In the build-up, Malmo manager Age Hareide had been almost menacing with his messages, seemingly revelling in delivering cryptic warnings. "They know nothing about us," he'd said of Real Madrid in ominous fashion, according to Marca, "and they're only human."
When Hareide went on to "promise" that his right-back Anton Tinnerholm was "going to be all over" Cristiano Ronaldo, on what sounded like a personal crusade, you could have been forgiven for imagining Malmo as some kind of provincial tribe preparing for battle.