Guardiola's Man City vanquish Mourinho's Man United in Manchester Derby

Pep Guardiola won the first battle in his renewed rivalry with Jose Mourinho as his Manchester City beat Manchester United 2-1 at the latter’s Old Trafford on Saturday in the first Manchester Derby of the season.

The brand-name managers, whose relationship had boiled into fiery animosity when they managed Barcelona and Real Madrid, exchanged a big hug before the game, which seemed to be as big an event as the kickoff itself.

But after a high-octane start between the two most expensive starting lineups ever assembled, City proved so dominant that United, playing at home, could barely hold onto the ball in the first half. The Reds Devils were overrun in the midfield and carved up by City’s superior ball movement.

And after a quarter of an hour, City got its reward. Ironically, however, the first goal in this storied derby for Guardiola, the short-passing ideologue, came on a very archaic long ball play. Aleksandar Kolarov’s lofted pass out of the back was knocked down by Kelechi Iheanacho. Kevin De Bruyne got a toe on the ball to beat the misreading Daley Blind and set himself free from the pack. He then took a soft touch and beat goalkeeper David De Gea from the edge of the box with a placed shot.

In the 36th minute, City got a deserved second. De Bruyne cut open the defense with a fancy move but smacked his shot off the far post. Iheanacho, kept onside by Blind, found himself in front of the rebound by himself and poked it home.

United would finally stir just before halftime. A long, lofted free kick by an erstwhile anonymous Wayne Rooney floated to the far post and seemed like a lost ball. But Claudio Bravo, making a very shaky debut for City after coming over from Barcelona, lost hold of it as he landed on John Stones. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (because, of course, Zlatan Ibrahimovic) pounced and volleyed it home without hesitation.

Rooney then picked up a bad turnover from Stones and served Ibrahimovic a header at the far post, but he didn’t have enough of an angle to trouble Bravo.

The tide had already turned by halftime, even though City recorded two-thirds of possession.

Mourinho made a pair of crucial substitutions at the break, bringing on Ander Herrera and Marcus Rashford for Jesse Lingard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, neither of whom had done anything but contribute to their team’s malaise.

Herrera helped to settle the midfield, while Rashford finally injected some venom into the attack. And within minutes, he scampered away on the left and flipped a ball to Ibrahimovic, whose volley went just high.

United, on the whole, was far more composed and threatening in the early second half. And in a series of penalty shouts, the Red Devils had by far the most credible call when Bravo made a rash challenge on Rooney in his own goalmouth after losing the ball on a dribble. There was no whistle from referee Mark Clattenburg.

United thought it had an equalizer in the 70th minute. Rashford’s shot beat Bravo, but it had nicked off Ibrahimobic, who was well offside.

Mourinho’s men kept pressing for their goal and pinned their once-mighty guests well back. But in the end, the Sky Blues held on fairly comfortably to strike the first blow in this new era of soccer in Manchester.

If the subsequent bouts live up to the mesmerizing theater of this first installment, the renewed Guardiola-Mourinho rivalry, although friendlier — for now — could prove every bit as good in Manchester as it was in Spain.