Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho hailed his side's performance in their 2-0 Champions League victory over AC Milan as "fantastic".
Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho hailed his side's performance in their 2-0 Champions League victory over AC Milan as "fantastic".
Madrid took complete control of Group G after early goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Ozil earned them their third successive win in Europe, leaving them five points clear of nearest challengers Milan and Ajax.
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Mourinho, who is still unbeaten as Madrid coach and now boasts eight wins from his 10 games in charge, said after the match: "The physical, mental and tactical response of the team has been fantastic after the effort made against Malaga (Saturday night) and barely two days to prepare for the match.
"To play at this level was an incredible response from the players. I'm very happy because we've played very well.
"Now we have two away games before we finish the group at home to Auxerre and what we want is to have our place in the next round secured before this last game. First we must qualify and then go for first place."
Madrid needed just 13 minutes to go ahead in the mouth-watering battle between the two most successful clubs in European Cup history, Ronaldo firing a free-kick waist-high through a poor Milan wall.
The home side, who have been crowned champions of Europe nine times compared to Milan's seven, then doubled their advantage 60 seconds later when Ozil's shot took a huge deflection off Daniele Bonera to leave goalkeeper Marco Amelia with no chance.
Milan briefly threatened a fightback when Andrea Pirlo hit the crossbar from a free-kick and Clarence Seedorf blazed a good opportunity over with his left foot, but otherwise it was virtually all Madrid, who could and perhaps should have added at least a couple more goals.
That was one of the few complaints Mourinho had about the match, saying: "Fortunately it was a qualification game where goals do not have as much significance.
"If this was a semi-final or a match where goals were important I wouldn't be so happy, because it should have been a 4-0 win. We missed a lot of chances."
Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri, who sent out an adventurous line-up with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alexandre Pato and Ronaldinho supported by Seedorf and Pirlo, was much less impressed than his Portuguese counterpart after seeing his side comfortable beaten.
Allegri said: "I'm sad for my players, we thought we could play a different type of game. The game was decided in the first 15 minutes. We've had a bad game.
"We did have some goalscoring chances, but not too many.
"This is a mistake that should not be repeated. Hopefully this is the last time this happens. We must have a different type of performance to be competitive at European level.
"Now we need to look forward. We depend on ourselves, but we know that we have three very difficult games."
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