Silence swept from one end of the Etihad Stadium to the other, a wave of dawning realization. The background noise that a crowd cannot help but generate — the rumble and murmur of 20,000 separate conversations — fell away. For most of Wednesday evening, the natural operating assumption was that Manchester City would advance past Real Madrid and reach yet another Champions League semifinal. Pep Guardiola’s City team was creating so many chances that victory felt, really, like a statistical inevitability. City went close with a chance again.

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Persons: —, City, Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovacic Organizations: Etihad, Manchester City, Real, League, Guardiola’s City Locations: Real Madrid