If football games were books, finals would be high-intensity thrillers or the kind of whodunnit that keeps you turning page after page.
But as the teams arrived at Pride Park with the first piece of silverware of the season on the line, fans instead were settling in for a novel of Dickensian length.
The tie marked Chelsea and City’s first of four meetings in the space of 12 days, leaving Sonia Bompastor little time to celebrate her first trophy in English football, with focus instead already turning to Wednesday’s Champions League tie.
Whether it was an opening chapter set up to foreshadow the subsequent events is yet to be seen but it certainly told the story of Bompastor’s first season at Chelsea and will surely be just a footnote in Nick Cushing’s time at Manchester City.
The Blues continued their unbeaten season with 2-1 victory over a City side both reeling and rejuvenated from the dismissal of Gareth Taylor just five days earlier.
What could have been a poetic return for Cushing, whose first trophy during his previous stint in Manchester was the League Cup, succumbed to what has been a procession of Chelsea dominance this season.
The writing was on the wall early as Chelsea took an early lead after just eight minutes through Mayra Ramirez and looked relatively untroubled for the rest of the first half as they sat back and soaked up the pressure.
It was a side that looked in cruise control, momentarily awoken by some Aoba Fujino brilliance for City’s equaliser, before order was restored as Yui Hasegawa turned into her own net.
Chelsea never really felt forced out of first gear but perhaps that was the tactic. With 270 minutes left to play, Bompastor will not want to lay her cards out too early.
Chelsea are not in the habit of losing, and certainly not to City, having lost just three of their past 20 meetings with the blue side of Manchester.
Yet Saturday presented a cruel irony that a reversal of events may have placated more fans.
Taking the logic that you are bound to lose at least one of the four matches, if you were to ask City fans which they would most like to win the League Cup would have provided their best chance of silverware.
Pose the same question to Chelsea fans of which encounter they would not mind losing and once more the answer would likely be the League Cup as their sights remained fixed on the Champions League.
It suggests that the next 12 days could feel far longer for those of a City persuasion and winning the first round will surely provide confidence for a Chelsea side who also boast more depth.
“Psychologically, it's really important to win the first one," said Bompastor. "Of course, it won't be the main element going into the next game but in terms of confidence, that's really positive.
“Even in terms of recovery, you always recover better when you win the games. That's a big advantage, but it won't be enough just to think, because we won today, it will be enough to win the game on Wednesday.
“By tomorrow, we already know all the plans going into the game on Wednesday. The approach will be a bit different because it's two legs in the Champions League, so we need to maybe prepare the game in a different way.”
If ever there were an ultimate tactical test this would surely be it, four games in three different competitions against the same team back-to-back.
In City, Bompastor faces an ever-shifting entity as the influence of Cushing’s arrival will become more pronounced with each game.
The man himself, who has only been in post four days, felt he had seen enough to know a win against this Chelsea side is possible.
“That's my job and the staff's job to swing this into being motivation rather than the deflation of losing or the fear that we're playing a better team,” said Cushing.
“For me, this feeling that you get when you lose in finals, if that's not enough motivation to take you into the next game, then we're playing the wrong game.
“We did enough to win the game today. We had many, many moments and I was proud of that.”
Neither side looked totally infallible, Chelsea squandered two clear chances to bolster their advantage as Ramirez and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd both spurned one-on-ones.
While City looked comfortable on the ball, their defensive frailties remained apparent and they too lacked a clinical edge in front of goal as they struggled for quality chances.
The Champions League represents the next chapter in the epic, a competition that for Chelsea has represented a recurring foe.
The crown jewel that has always evaded them and the one that would put them firmly among the women’s football's greatest teams.
But with three more meetings against a Manchester City team that ran them close in Derby, we are only at the exposition of what could turn out to be a classic.