Thiago Alcantara diving header hands Bayern Munich telling advantage against Sevilla in Champions League tie

Sevilla 1 Bayern Munich 2: Pablo Sarabia’s opener put the hosts in front but they couldn’t hold on and will go to Germany with a near impossible task

Thiago Alcantara celebrates Bayern Munich’s winner (Getty)

It was a night of which Sevilla can be proud but, ultimately, it felt like the night when the dream died.

Thiago Alcantara, of all people, popped up with a second-half header to complete Bayern Munich’s comeback in a game that had started with such hope but ended with such frustration. Sevilla know they had their shot and they could have taken it too. This was a game of millimetres but they were up against a side precision engineered, while they remain a work in progress.

90 minutes remain of this Champions League quarter-final tie and on this evidence Sevilla will entertain as they go down fighting. But going down feels sadly inevitable.

The Allianz, unlike many new stadia, retains a matchday atmosphere to be fearful of and becomes a cauldron on big European nights. In that way – and virtually only that way – it is like Seville’s charming, old-world Sanchez Pizjuan, which bubbled over with excitement at every tackle, shot or moment of notable thrust in an engrossing first leg, particularly in the opening exchanges.

That enthusiasm reminded us of the difference between these two clubs.

For Bayern, the final eight of the Champions League is a second home, somewhere they are not only accustomed to being but very uncomfortable when not. Sevilla, despite their European knockout success of recent years, still felt somewhat like excitable newcomers on this stage but that did not affect them negatively, this was a team packed with flair players determined to thrill and spurred on by those 40,000 who took their seats more in hope than expectation.

As lively and exciting as Sevilla were, Bayern’s first-half performance was stodgy, barely creating in attack and and struggling to contain in defence. They could and should have been at least a goal down before Pablo Sarabia made glorious amends for an earlier sitter that he had blazed wide when it had been easier to score.

The visitors appealed for handball, claiming that Sarabia had controlled Sergio Escudero’s cross with his arm. Those appeals were in vain, unheard by the Italian referee or the Sevilla players wildly celebrating a deserved opener in the corner.

Pablo Sarabia puts Sevilla in front (Getty)

For 31 frustrating minutes it had felt like the hosts were making all the running but would struggle to find a breakthrough as refereeing decisions and last-ditch tackles kept them at bay but as Sarabia swept home there was suddenly a belief that the cogs of one of continental football’s great machines could be disrupted and Sevilla could usurp another European giant.

If that belief was inflating too quickly, it took just one moment to burst their bubble and around 60 more to thoroughly put them in their place.

Franck Ribery’s tame cross took a deflection off Jesus Navas and reserve goalkeeper David Soria fumbled in vain at his near post just six minutes after Sarabia had taken the roof of the Sanchez Pizjuan. 1-1.

That freak bounce felt like the moment that this game changed, though materially, tactically, it was probably the substitution minutes before.

Bayern had seemed there for the taking in that first half, a stodgy midfield epitomised by Arturo Vidal’s inactivity. But the Chilean was replaced, presumably as unfit as his performance had suggested, and the Germans rarely looked back after James Rodriguez’s introduction.

Franco Vazquez was close to getting Sevilla back in front as the second half started but once more found himself up against defending of the highest order as a certain goal lay waiting.

This time it was Javi Martinez’s last-ditch challenge that would prove the difference between agony and ecstasy, as Joshua Kimmich’s sliding intervention had in the opening exchanges and as Mats Hummels did with an incredible regularity throughout a game where the Bundesliga side’s midfield afforded its backline scant protection.

But from here, as they so often do, Bayern turned the screw. Sevilla’s dangerous moments – which had mainly come through Sarabia, Vazquez and Joaquin Correa – became increasingly infrequent and the Sanchez Pizjuan more regularly hushed by the troublesome sight of the visitors marauding forward.

Frank Ribery and Arjen Robben celebrate their equaliser (Getty)

Soria made up for his part in the equaliser by saving brilliantly from one Bayern header but could do nothing about Thiago’s bouncing effort shortly after. A deathly silence descended on Seville as the Germans took a barely-deserved lead.

As boisterous as the home fans were in the first half, it was impossible to get back to those levels. As good as their team was, the same applied. The dreams, hope and enthusiasm of 1-0, even 0-0, had been doused by two away goals and that smothering sense of inevitability. It was a sense that had always been there, especially when the ball refused to break for the Andalusians in those crucial moments, but that had been possible to suppress. As Jupp Heynckes celebrated, Vincenzo Montella looked down at his feet and knew their chance was gone.

That isn’t to say Sevilla can’t go through next week in Munich, just that lightning doesn’t tend to strike twice and even less commonly at two of European football’s best-known arenas. Munich is the home of a winning machine and though it clunked and spluttered on Spanish soil, it produced the results to which we have become so accustomed.

Sevilla dumped Manchester United out of the Champions League in their own back yard but that remains a flawed team wading their way through a transitional period. This is Bayern Munich, and they will take a lot more stopping.