Even the instant replay could not spoil the incredibly entertaining Champions League game.

Wednesday's UEFA Champions League quarter-finals between Manchester City and Tottenham were about as cinematic as you imagined, as far from a standard midscale slogfest as the match fights. Rocky the movies are from real boxing. The pace was frantic from start to finish. Both teams seemed eager to introduce themselves, one in front of the other, to the producers of haymism. There were five goals in the first 21 minutes. Each attack was likely to be devastated, not to mention the clever and final feint of Manchester City's Raheem Sterling that ended in the 93rd minute of the match, which seemed to push City into the semifinal with a total score of two games.

But it is the city that has been devastated. Sterling's goal was reviewed through the referee's video assistant, and the game was determined by determining the correct replay angle. After a few minutes, the goal was recalled for an offside violation, leaving the series tied at 4-4 and sending Tottenham into the semi-finals as he had scored more goals on the outside. (Tottenham won last week at home 1-0 and lost 4-3 Wednesday to Manchester to make sure of a tiebreaker).

What made the replay difficult to understand was that Sterling was clearly not out of play when he received the pass from Sergio Aguero – he was behind the ball and several Tottenham defenders. (He still scored easily because defense was optional in this game.) Instead, the key question was whether Agüero was offside when he stumbled upon a ball that just bounced off the ball. inside the surface of Tottenham. It also seemed like a strange problem to raise: the pass that Aguero was trying to retrieve was played by Tottenham's Christian Eriksen, and a player could not be offside when the ball was played by an opponent. But the referee determined that Aguero passed the last goal when Eriksen hit City player Bernardo Silva. A player is offside if the ball comes from his teammate, the goal resulting from the shot did not count.

There is no way to summarize this long story, no narrative that does not involve interfering on many levels in the most misunderstood sport rule. There's hardly more tedious stuff in modern sports than complaining about replaying instantly, but Wednesday's game has been immersed in a deep dive into the details of Laws of the Game, like a movie. sportsman directed by George Lucas. City manager Pep Guardiola admitted that VAR had understood Sterling's ultimate goal, but it seemed to be anti-climatic.

If a game deserved better, it was this one. It was electric, as exciting and as aggressive as the football world has seen all season. The score was 3-2 after 21 minutes, including four goals scored in a single seven-minute blitz. Sterling had scored twice before his winner was out. Kevin De Bruyne, of City, finished with three assists, passing through the opposing midfielder, seemingly at his leisure. His Heung-Min, of Tottenham, scored his third and fourth goals in the round of 16, depriving City of his momentum after opening Sterling's score just four minutes from the end.

A 4-3 thriller is the perfect encapsulation of this year's Champions League, where no tie in the round of 16 has resulted in less than four goals and where the remaining four semifinalists lean heavily for the attack. Liverpool aggressively supports and quickly returns through its pre-third dynamic. Ajax has found the good, skilled veteran to make the most of his young talent and has scored over 100 goals in the Dutch Eredivisie. Barcelona still has Lionel Messi and has scored 25 more goals than the team in second place La Liga. Each remaining team has scored four or more goals in a knockout match this season, with the exception of Tottenham, who has scored three times twice.

As for City, it will again face Tottenham this Saturday in the Premier League, desperate to win to stay at the height of Liverpool at the top of the table. It's hard to say how much Wednesday's reversal of replay will impact the game. One tip though: Bet on the end result.