MADRID, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Olympique Marseille coach Alain Perrin said his team were given a harsh lesson in the realities of soccer during their 4-2 defeat away to Real Madrid in their opening Champions League match at the Bernabeu on Tuesday night.

"What happened out there was the result of the fact that we played with fear and hesitation," Perrin told a news conference.

"We gave the ball away too easily and you can't afford to do that against a team like Real Madrid. For them the ball became just a play-thing and we ended up paying for it."

Marseille started brightly and took a surprise lead when striker Didier Drogba rifled home on 26 minutes, but the goal sparked Real into life and quick-fire goals from Roberto Carlos and Ronaldo sent the home side into the break with a 2-1 lead.

Real, who were fresh from a 7-2 drubbing of Valladolid in the league at the weekend, then turned on the attacking power at the start of the second half and left the French side with little chance of staging a comeback.

Ronaldo made it 3-1 when he raced on to a neat through ball from Zinedine Zidane before producing a sharp finish from just inside the area and Luis Figo notched the fourth from the penalty spot after the Brazilian was felled by Marseille keeper Vedran Runje four minutes later.

"We didn't give a proper account of ourselves out there," said Perrin. "That was really frustrating because we certainly didn't show how we are capable of playing.

"We were given a harsh lesson in how football works and now need to make sure that we do ourselves justice when we play them at home."

Real Madrid coach Carlos Queiroz said that his players' ability to weather the early pressure was the key to his side's impressive victory.

"For the first 15 to 20 minutes Marseille posed us a lot of problems, but it was important that we didn't rush things and moved the ball around until the openings appeared.

"The goal acted as a wake-up call for us and then the quality of our players showed through.

"At times we played some very good football and we created a lot of scoring opportunities, but the key was also our discipline in defence. Our defenders did a fantastic job and made it possible for us to throw more players into attack."

By Simon Baskett