The two UEFA Champions League quarter-finalists are not done with each other yet, there is one more clash between the two which both sides have to square out on this weekend.
In the Manchester City dressing room after what might have been the most emotionally dramatic match any player could ever experience, some of the players were naturally crestfallen, but others were already determined.
Raheem Sterling was in the latter category, walking around and picking his team-mates up, reminding them that there was still a title to play for.
There was still, in fact, an equally important match against Tottenham Hotspur to play.
A Tottenham Hotspur side who are of course utterly elated, but now must somehow raise themselves to similar levels.
That the elusive fortunes of football fated a game like that which took place at the Etihad on Wednesday was remarkable enough, but for them to the fate that the two teams would meet again in their very next match feels unique.
It’s difficult to think of other such series that went like this, with climax and then more climax. It’s difficult thereby to know what the two squads must be thinking, and how they mentally deal with this.
That alone, that challenge for both sides to get themselves up for a hugely important match after such an emotionally draining experience, makes this tense run-in even more fascinating.
Who will be in better mental shape? Will City be too deflated, or too determined? Will Spurs be emboldened and hungry for more, or temporarily sated? There is, of course, a danger the match could be flat after what transpired on Wednesday, but the very stakes indicate that is unlikely.
Some around the Liverpool squad in Porto did wonder aloud whether it was better or worse for their own title challenge that City suffered such a devastating elimination, especially one that so toyed with their emotions through the late Sterling goal and VAR check.
That just added insult to injury-time drama. It could well shatter them, and bring a drop-off in the way that happens when the first domino finally falls in a quest as grand as going for the quadruple.
On the other hand, it could just make them more determined to get a feat as historic as the domestic treble done. It might steal them. Some footballers also subscribe to the basic but still psychologically powerful view that you are only ever due to a certain amount of disappointments in such runs.
This then might be City’s, leaving them unencumbered by the niggling feeling they are due to a slip for the rest of the title race.
Others around the Liverpool squad pointed out that the potential effect of Sterling’s injury-time goal standing could have been so much worse. It could have propelled City to even higher levels, made them feel fated to do something so momentous as the quadruple, with all the genuinely effective assurance such a sense of destiny brings to the performance. There might, really, have been no stopping them.
We’ll only know for sure on Saturday, but history offers evidence from similar histrionics on both sides. One such exhibit of them is from City themselves.
They were gutted by the Champions League elimination to Liverpool last season, to the point that Pep Guardiola spent the summer obsessing over it, but it didn’t gut their campaign. It just made them all the more intent on making such a season memorable, by reaching the historic return of 100 points.
It was the same after the 3-2 derby defeat to Manchester United when a remarkable comeback denied them the sensation of winning the title in what would have been a record early date against their biggest rivals.
Even that, however, wasn’t as wrenching as what happened on Wednesday. To go from the most intense of celebrations to the deepest of disappointments is beyond jarring, especially when you consider what it came down to.
This is why the quadruple is so difficult, so elusive. It is a display of such power and yet still so fragile because the smallest of moments can disrupt the whole thing. In this case, it was the tightest of offside calls, following on from the tightest of handball calls, and even a penalty miss.
Had any of them gone their way, City would have won, and felt like they’re only going in one direction. No longer.
Some sides like Manchester United 1993-94, or Arsenal 2003-04 – have responded well to such setbacks. Arsenal was in danger of that entire invincible season collapsing as they went out of the Champions League and FA Cup in quick succession, only to quickly respond in the best way possible with a comeback victory over Liverpool. The unbeaten season remained on course.
Internazionale 1967 was not so durable. Their epic defeat to Celtic in that year’s European Cup final was indeed the domino falling that saw the whole set-up collapse.
They fell apart, although that was a team that was already coming to an end, and who had up to then delayed that through that muscle memory such mature sides often display.
Don Revie’s Leeds United, meanwhile, almost developed muscle memory for just missing out on so many trophies. They were so good they ironically often failed to prove it, because they were just going too far in too many competitions.
There’s then the effect of such epic games going the distance, especially so late in the season. They don’t, however, have the effect some might expect.
Arsenal’s next result after the famous 2-1 FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester United? A 5-1 crushing of Wimbledon, as their winning run in the league, continued.
Newcastle United’s next result after the famous 4-3 against Liverpool at Anfield? A late 2-1 victory against Queens Park Rangers, where they initially went behind, only for Peter Beardsley to score in the 77th and 81st minute.
Fittingly, games that exceed all expectation don’t often result in what you’d expect.
It makes this weekend, and this race, all the more fascinating.