Zidane came back to life through the defense, raging in Atlanta

Zinedine Zidane did it again. Against all odds, when he has barely a squad to put up for the game and manages to pick up barely 11 opening players, the Real Madrid coach last night (Wednesday) led his Blancos to a 0-1 win over Atlanta in Italy in the first game of the Champions League quarterfinals and fifth consecutive victory in all competitions – Four in the league and one in the Champions League. The most notable thing in all five of these games – Real, without Sergio Ramos, conceded just one goal.

Even last night that was the story. Although Atlanta were left with ten players at a very early stage after the removal of Remo Froiler, the Blancos did not have to deal with threats from the Italians at all and in the 86th minute, of course, a defensive player decided the game. Perlan Mandy, the French left-back who sent a huge kick into the net with his right foot and set up the result of the game, which brought the Whites very close to the next stage of the Champions League despite all the significant setbacks.

Perlan Mandy and Rafael Varane celebrate at the end (Reuters)

Mandy was named the game’s standout, followed by Nacho and the Spanish media attributed this to the fact that Zadian once again managed to unite the players around him and make them internalize that without a strong defense, the team has no chance of succeeding. At the end of the game, the coach even said that Mandy’s goal came from a planned exercise of the team. “This move is a move that we practice a lot in training, we also worked on it specifically for this game, but Mandy was not supposed to be the finishing player.”

In Spain, of course, the goal scorer was complimented and the headlines ranged from: “The kind of thing that can only happen in Real Madrid games, what a Mandy goal”, and also: “Mandy’s goal was just wonderful, and more on his bad foot!”. In the “S” the title on Mandy’s gate was: “The Golden Gate”.

On the other hand, Atlanta were very angry about Froiler’s dismissal and the fact that the screen referee did not intervene and in fact left the dismissal as the game referee ruled. “I do not understand how in the age of technology, when we have VAR, such distances occur. On the contrary, this era was supposed to prevent such distances from happening, but I will stop myself here and not continue because the UEFA will keep me away for two months, ”grumbled at the end of coach Jean Piero Gasparini.