Madrid's defence, which had conceded a dangerous attack every three minutes of so, became rock-solid around the half-hour mark in what turned out to be a 5-2 comeback victory at Anfield.
Mo Salah had a lot of fun on Madrid's left-hand side in the opening 30 minutes but in the remaining 60 minutes, the Egyptian disappeared from the game.
Why? Both Jurgen Klopp and Carlo Ancelotti credit Nacho, who replaced the injured Alaba in the 27th minute, with nullifying the Salah threat.
“Nacho. Nacho came in," the Liverpool boss told Managing Madrid when asked why their threat on the right became less efficient.
"He was amazing. I don’t know how many years he’s been at Real Madrid, but he was great."
Carletto complimented Nacho as well: "The problem we had on our left was because I told Modrić to press Fabinho more, plus Vinícius was quite open. In the second half, we put Valverde there and that helped.
"But, it’s true that Nacho did well in every sense, as he always does. It doesn’t matter if he plays right-back, left-back or centre-back. He has a footballing intelligence like few others."
