Atalanta, known for their high press and varied offense, came out attacking. Real Madrid had a 1-0 away goal advantage, so they needed to strike early to get things back on an equal footing at the Estadio Alfredo di Stefano, Real's home ground for now.

It was incredibly windy, loud enough to be a constant roar during the TV broadcast, making up for the silence of the empty stadium, and initially, this favored the away team. Atalanta's quick pressing relies on plenty of players moving forward and passing the ball quickly in short movements. Real Madrid, who favor long balls, found most of their effort going astray.

Up the right, extending from right-back and team captain Rafael Toloi to midfielders Matteo Pessina and Joakim Maehle, Atalanta had the run of the pitch, and it was only Real's ability to drop deep into a back five that stopped any goals. Sergio Ramos, missing from the first leg, masterminded this defense and limited Atalanta to only one shot on target in the first half hour.

As at the back, up front, Real relied on returning talent. Karim Benzema missing from the last leg, occasionally broke through when the winds allowed and linked up with pacy Vinicius Jr or Luka Modric.

In the 34th minute, it paid off. Atalanta goalkeeper Marco Sportiello tried to kick the ball long, and the wind blew it into the path of Modric who sprinted at the goal then cheekily passed across to Benzema. The French international was faced with an open net and smashed it home uncontested.

Now 1-0 up on the night, 2-0 overall, Real played with more confidence and, going into the second half, looked in the ascendancy. In the 52nd minute, Vinicius Jr ran two-thirds of the pitch and only missed due to the Atalanta players tracking back to stop him in the box.

This kind of individual brilliance was becoming impossible for the Italian collective to stop. Likewise, the unique skills of Ramos, Benzema, Modric, et al. were too overwhelming for the single-minded players in the Gian Piero Gasparini system.

Vinicius stole the ball from Russian Malinkovskyi and tried another run. This time Atalanta were more desperate, and it took Toloi bringing him down on the edge of the Atalanta box to prevent a goal. Unfortunately for them, VAR confirmed it was on the inside edge of the box, meaning it was a penalty. Ramos converted it with ease on the stroke of an hour played.

At 3-0 on aggregate, the game was over. The adverse weather combined with the alternate mentalities of a side well ahead and one too far behind made the remainder scrappy, if mostly fruitless. Of the next 20 minutes, the highlight was Benzema not scoring two fantastic headers; the first hit the keeper at full force, and he managed to get underneath it and head it again, only this time into the crossbar.

Atalanta received a free kick out of nothing with a little under 10 minutes remaining. It was real FIFA stuff: Luis Muriel stood over the ball with three teammates ahead of him. At the whistle, they ran as if to receive the ball; instead, Muriel went directly for goal and outfoxed Thibaut Courtois.

The 2-1 score lasted for a minute. While play was stopped, Madrid brought on Marco Asensio and Atalanta swapped out Muriel and a midfielder. Atalanta had changed their tactics to try and grab another goal and, while getting into position, Asensio ran through their defense and scored with his first play of the game. It ended 3-1, 4-1 across both games, and Real Madrid progressed beyond the Round of 16 for the first time since 2017/18.

In the upper tiers of European football, it's the intangibles that separate teams. At some point, certain superstar players stand out, but the overall quality is so high in terms of skills, and the margins for success get so narrow that statistics such as shot accuracy and distance run overall don't really matter.

What matters is the ability to not make mistakes and to capitalize on those made by your opponent. It's this which separated Real Madrid from Atalanta, the winners from the better team on the night.