Pep Guardiola has revealed he gushed over Zinedine Zidane during their private conversation at the Etihad Stadium on Friday night.
Manchester City stunned Real Madrid for a second time in five months to claim a deserved place in the Champions League quarter-finals with a 2-1 victory.
Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus took advantage of errors by Raphael Varane either side of a Karim Benzema equaliser to complete a 4-2 aggregate victory over the 13-time winners.
After a gap of more than five months between the two legs of a pulsating tie due to the coronavirus pandemic, City will now go forward to the newly-arranged last-eight tournament in Lisbon next week, when they will face Lyon.
Despite the match being played behind closed doors, City looked pumped up from the outset and determined to pull off a repeat of their famous victory at the Bernabeu in February.
They benefited from two horrendous errors from Varane but their relentless intensity gave the newly-crowned Spanish champions little time to settle.
And former Barcelona boss Guardiola was more than happy to divulge what he said to the Frenchman after the conclusion of the game in Manchester.
The 49-year-old said: "I congratulated him for LaLiga. I always said to win the league is the most difficult title because its shows 11 months being there."
"We spoke about our families and I wished him all the best. He was one of my idols when I was a player."
"I played against him in the national team with France and I suffered a lot."
"He was one of the greatest and as a human being he is an example and I like how he can represent our profession like he does."