Mourinho was right : Real Madrid are on another level to United

It was no vintage showing either from the European champions. Casemiro's opening goal was marginally offside, while Romelu Lukaku missed a couple of great chances for United.

But Mourinho's earlier assessment was correct - Real have better players and are simply slicker with the ball at their feet.

It was not so long ago that Mourinho was being touted for a possible return to the Santiago Bernabeu. When Carlo Ancelotti was axed in the summer of 2015, the Portuguese was one of the names in the frame before Rafa Benitez was appointed as coach and he was mentioned again when the Spaniard was sacked in January last year.

But Real have moved on since then. And that was perhaps summed up as Sergio Ramos was told that his former coach had said how the defender had never played a Champions League quarter-final before his arrival at the club in 2010.

"It's true what he said," Ramos replied. "When he arrived, we started to get past the quarter-finals and now we have won three Champions Leagues." Indeed. And two of those have come in the past two seasons, with Zidane as coach.

The former France great now has six trophies in his brief time as Madrid boss, twice the number won by Mourinho in his three-year tenure at the Bernabeu. And in classic Jose style, the Portuguese gave away his runners-up medal after this match.

"They had a period of dominancy in the first half," Mourinho - who has never beaten Madrid in a competitive match - said after the game. "We had a period of dominancy in the second half. We gave them a good fight. My boys leave disappointed but optimistic and proud."

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"I'm content; we all are," was Zidane's reaction. "We play to win these kinds of games, they are important. We played a great game. We suffered a little bit at the end of the second half but we played with character.

"It was difficult at the end. They put us in a bit a difficulty with the long balls but we did well."

That was probably not meant as a dig at Mourinho, but it was true. Stylistically, the Portuguese was never the right fit at Real and his football is still somewhat negative at times.

It remains to be seen how that will work out in the longer term at Old Trafford, particularly in the biggest competitions.

So, while United made a game of it in the end and missed chances, Madrid were good for their win when it mattered most to show that, even after a poor pre-season, they have moved on since Mourinho's days.