Manchester City's convincing debut

In the middle of the first half, cameras installed at the Puskas Arena stadium in Budapest caught Pep Guardiola in the technical area.

Usually the active mentor of Manchester City sat in a chair and, rolling his eyes, calmly scratched the back of his head.

In a nominally home game against Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Catalan complemented the picture perfectly.

After all, by the 18th minute, his charges had actually removed the question of the outcome of the confrontation.

First, Kevin De Bruyne scored the hundredth goal of the townspeople this season (with the current mentor, the team overcomes this milestone for the fifth year in a row), and then Ilkay Gundogan flashed again.

The midfielder who has never scored so much before scored 15 goals in all competitions and became the most productive German in the current season from among the top 5 leading European championships.

Borussia tried to organize at least a goal of prestige, but each time they were left with nothing, running into John Stones.

The Englishman did not lose a single combat both in the air and below in the first half.

If he also took the ball under his control in the fight, then, as a rule, he gave his partners an accurate pass.

In fact, Manchester got an additional playmaker in the center-back.

And, as a result, he demonstrated prohibitive for this stage of the Champions League possession indicators - 65%.

The guests had only to test Ederson's strength with long-range shots.

But the Brazilian goalkeeper, who did not really enter the game in the first leg, kept maximum concentration.

The measured lullaby rhythm was not particularly interrupted even after the break.

The vice-champions of England reveled in possession, but did not demonstrate anything supernatural.

Although the aesthetic beauty of Guardiola's football was fascinating in itself.

Marco Rose's team acted more straightforwardly, but this only simplified the life of the City defenders and the work of the referee.

By the way, the meeting was served by the brigade of Russian Sergey Karasev.

The referee did not make any mistakes, and if they remembered anything, then only the refusal to kneel down at the beginning of the match as a sign of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

However, this did not in any way affect the emotions of the rest of the participants in the game, or the nature of the meeting.

Zidane's clever tactics

The victory of Real Madrid grew out of the tactical plan for the game of Zinedine Zidane, which completely neutralized the strengths of Atalanta.

The move to three defenders off the ball left space for the guests' inventive center midfielders.

While the displacement of Federico Valverde closer to the right flank and the help from the defenders to Ferlán Mendy on the opposite edge nullified the activity of the Bergamascans on the sidelines.

Thus, the Madrid team secured the approaches to the goal of Thibaut Courtois as much as possible and the advantage of one goal, obtained on the road.

Real Madrid made their own goal, which broke the resistance of the opponent, practically out of thin air.

In the 34th minute, Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Sportiello made an unfortunate clearance from the penalty area, sending the ball straight to the foot of Luka Modric.

Horvath could have hit himself, but instead got close to the goalkeeper and passed the pass to the empty net to Karim Benzema.

The Frenchman distinguished himself in the fifth meeting in all tournaments in a row and recorded his 70th goal in the Champions League.

This allowed him to rise to the fifth line in the list of the most productive footballers in the history of the tournament.

Only Raul (71), Robert Lewandowski (72), Lionel Messi (120) and Cristiano Ronaldo (134) are in front.

By inertia, the team of Gian Piero Gasperini still finished the half, but after the break it seemed to be changed.

The guests began to lose martial arts, made frequent mistakes in the center of the field and sagged in high-speed work.

It took the hosts only a quarter of an hour to assess the scale of the opponent's problems, find the most vulnerable zones and send a targeted strike there.

It was played by Vinicius, perhaps the most active football player of Real Madrid in the match.

First, he rehearsed a goal: after measuring three quarters of the field in the 54th minute and beating several opponents on dribbling, the Brazilian went one-on-one with Sportiello, but sent the ball past the gate from a lethal position.

However, the forward soon corrected himself, in a similar way, reaching someone else's penalty area and provoking contact with the defender.

Arbitrator Danny McKeley regarded the episode as a violation of the rules and awarded Rafael Toloi with a yellow card, after which Sergio Ramos converted the penalty.

For the captain of Madrid, the goal became a landmark, since 15 goals in the Champions League cannot boast, for example, Ronaldo, Miroslav Klose and even Zidane himself.

For Atalanta, what happened meant only one thing - a farewell to the Champions League playoffs.

And even the exchange of effective jabs in the end, which included Luis Muriel's gorgeous free-kick goal with an instant response from Marco Asensio, did not change the situation.

Just as Alexei Miranchuk failed to do it.

The Russian midfielder, who played the previous match on the bench, entered the field in the 84th minute and did not have enough time to save the team.

And Real Madrid's victory with a total score of 4: 1 opened the way to the quarterfinals.