LONDON — Even today, when teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to win the Champions League, the intrigue around the games themselves can seem priceless.
Both of Tuesday’s games — Manchester City versus Dynamo Kiev and Atlético Madrid versus P.S.V. Eindhoven — finished scoreless. This had never happened before in the current format of the knockout phase, and beneath the apparent barrenness were pain and lasting consequences, both physical and financial.
In Manchester, the home goalkeeper Joe Hart had to make his first save only seconds before the final whistle as City reached the quarterfinals for the first time.