The stage of being happy to be back in European football at all passed a while ago for Aston Villa and their supporters, much as they are still revelling in their thousands on every away trip.
That was particularly true in Barcelona, and it was easy to find Villa fans who were just taking it all in. They dared to hope for a positive result, but were happy enough just to see their team here.
There was no such stage for Unai Emery after his arrival at Villa, and the six months of the season in which he joined must have been an unusual time for him, not now.
Throughout that period he suggested with a broad grin that European football that season was entirely achievable, the first of many promises delivered.
Emery is not always mellow after defeats, his adrenaline still driving him, but he was calm in the media room here: not content to lose, but accepting that it was a somehow necessary part of a process.
Next month Villa face Paris St-Germain, perhaps the only other club defaulting to the same Harlem Globetrotter attacking style with such intensity.
They will have home advantage for that, as they did for the quarter-final second leg in April last year when they so nearly swept away PSG in an emotional riptide.
This is the level to which Emery aspires to take Villa, and to that end Barcelona was useful: “It is giving me a lot of information to analyse.”
This trip gave Villa fans another moment to reflect on how far they have travelled since being apparently marooned in the middle of the Championship less than a decade ago.
Emery’s gaze, however, remains fixed only on where they are going next.
Where they are literally going next is Old Trafford, which itself used to be an apparently unbreachable frontier for Villa.
Listen to full commentary of Manchester United v Aston Vila 16:30 GMT on Sunday on BBC Radio WM
And tune into The West Midlands Football Phone-In from 18:00 on weeknights
