Atalanta produced a fascinating free-kick in the Champions League this week.

The plucky Italian side might have seen their European hopes dashed by Real Madrid, crashing out of the round of 16 in a 4-1 aggregate defeat, but they still gave a fantastic account of themselves.

Having lost the opening leg 1-0 after Remo Freuler's red card, Atalanta had their backs against the wall and fell 2-0 down at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium going into the closing minutes of the game.

Atalanta's routine vs Real Madrid

However, they won a free-kick in a dangerous position with Atalanta proceeding to fool the Spanish champions by setting up their own wall in front of the one amassed by Zinedine Zidane's men.

The trio of Atalanta stars then began to peel away as a decoy, allowing Luis Muriel to pick his spot and fire a fantastic curling effort past the reaches of Thibaut Courtois.

Sure, it might not have been a free-kick routine that will change the beautiful game forever, but we love to see top teams playing around with set-piece scenarios we see week in, week out.

Dortmund's free-kick routine

And Atalanta's experimentation with faux walls made us think of some of the other ingenious free-kick routines we've seen over the years and one from Borussia Dortmund instantly came to mind.

It only seems natural that a club who has championed attacking, 'heavy metal' football over the last 10 years would come up with something so unique - and it still makes for fascinating viewing now.

It came from two players who still ply their trade at Signal Iduna Park, Raphaël Guerreiro and Marco Reus, during a Bundesliga clash with Werder Bremen in December 2018.

Guerreiro and Reus' unique approach

The playful routine saw Guerreiro look as though he was going to take the free-kick, only to make a dummy run to the right-hand side of the wall, seemingly leaving the cross for Reus to deliver.

But as Guerreiro slowly headed back to the ball, there suddenly looked to be a scenario where two BVB players were going to take the free-kick simultaneously a la Ryan Giggs and David Beckham.

We won't give away any spoilers from that point onwards, so be sure to check out the full routine down below and the fantastic goal that came from it:

So simple, but so effective.

Werder Bremen completely fooled

You just know that the Bremen defence were thrown off by the fact they had no idea what was happening with Guerreiro essentially being involved in no less than three stages of the ploy.

By the time the Dortmund wideman finally made the delivery, amusingly meaning that Reus was essentially just acting the whole time, Bremen were at the mercy of their host's front-line.

And anyone who recalls the sort of form that Paco Alcácer was enjoying at the time will know that it couldn't have been any less surprising when he proceeded to head home the delivery.

And thus, one of the greatest free-kick routines of the modern era was born and it's right up there with some of the cleverest we've seen in football history.

However, if nothing else, we hope it serves as inspiration for other football clubs to come up with their own clever set-pieces because there's nothing more entertaining than seeing them in action.