The circumstances could hardly have been more daunting for Jadon Sancho.
A goal down in a must-win game to keep Borussia Dortmund's title hopes alive, the 20-year-old was summoned from the bench at half-time by head coach Lucien Favre with a simple but difficult task: overcome the relentless Bayern Munich winning machine.
One of the most coveted young players across Europe, admired by Chelsea among many others, and a Dortmund side that played the better football despite lacking a killer instinct in front of goal fell well short.
The disappointment was clear to see as the full-time whistle went at Signal Iduna Park but for those neutral observers who were tuning in to see whether the Londoner is really worth £120million there were as many positives as negatives to take.
This was not Sancho at his electrifying best. Nowhere near, really.
Carrying a calf strain that has kept him out of the starting XI for the three games since the Bundesliga restarted, he was not as sharp as regular observers are accustomed to seeing and clearly unable to last 90 minutes.
Sancho did grow into the game after a subdued spell and the first fizz of excitement arrived when he delivered a crossfield pass to Thorgan Hazard, who then set up Erling Haaland for a shot that was deflected wide by the arm of Jerome Boateng.
Curiously the video assistant referee had no interest in a penalty and, with no protestations despite having a justifiable claim, the game continued. It was worth pondering whether if the Yellow Wall behind them was full and furious the VAR may have had a closer look.
In any case, with the title effectively on the line, Sancho began to step up. Switching from left to right and back again, he produced a delightful in-swinger that bent just wide with Haaland pulling up lame and unable to reach it.
The Leeds-born striker was immediately taken off and - relatively-speaking, of course - it was his most subdued performance since joining Dortmund in January.
That moment was also the closest Dortmund would come aside from a long-range free kick that Manuel Neuer comfortably palmed away.
Robbed of Haaland's presence as the focal point in attack, the pressure on Sancho to conjure something special grew further entering the final stages.
He and the other nine in yellow worked breathlessly for an equaliser when they needed a winner but for all those intricate passages of play there was little tangible to bother Neuer.
Tellingly, a graphic appeared on the screen as the players left the stage indicating that both sides had an expected goals tally of 0.8.
You could not help but wonder how different it would have been if the hosts' chief creator was fully fit.
