Chelsea's last hope of salvaging their season slipped away as Real Madrid completed a comfortable aggregate victory to dump Frank Lampard's side out of the Champions League.
Stamford Bridge was dotted with empty seats by the end of the quarter-final second leg, as it had been since Rodrygo skipped beyond Kepa Arrizabalaga and scored the second of two goals 10 minutes from time to ease the European champions through.
It was a 2-0 win for Real that, on reflection, Chelsea had never looked likely to rescue, in spite of two glorious chances either side of half-time for Marc Cucurella and N'Golo Kante.
At 0-0 on the night, they could have turned the tie in Chelsea's favour. But over 180 minutes Real were too good for Lampard's side, who now look destined to limp to the end of the season with nothing left to play for and an uncertain future beyond.
As it happened: Chelsea 0-2 Real Madrid
Midfielder Conor Gallagher admitted his side had been made to pay for missing chances.
He told BT Sport: "Football is all about taking your chances and we didn't do that today, which is disappointing. Of course we're going to be gutted, but we played some good stuff today.
"That's basically what wins you games and we haven't got that at the minute. But there's definitely a big improvement today on our recent performances, but you need to score goals to win games and they've done that and we didn't."
Interim Chelsea boss Frank Lampard also pointed to the opportunities which went begging.
He also told BT Sport: "We played really well for 60 minutes, and maybe it's normal after the goal - it's 3-0 in the tie and we make some changes to go for it - it's maybe normal how the game pans out to a degree, but 60 minutes, really good, really good chances at this level and you have to take them.
"You don't want to praise performance too much when you lose at this level because it's finite, but of course when you've been this season where we are."
Asked about the remainder of the season, Lampard said: "We're playing for Chelsea so regardless, every game we play, we have to give everything. I've only been here now for not even two weeks, so I'm hungry.
"I won't let anyone off the hook in terms of seeing this season out. It has to be the opposite. You have to show in the 60 minutes today what we showed.
"We were playing world-class opposition there and we were, for me, the better team and we had chances. Now that standard cannot drop. That's the one message, once the dust settles on this, for us in the house."
