Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 7y

Real Madrid's Keylor Navas 'saved three points' against Betis - Zidane

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said his goalkeeper Keylor Navas had "saved the three points" with a vital last minute stop in Sunday evening's 2-1 La Liga win at home to Real Betis.

Betis had gone ahead on 24 minutes when Navas embarrassingly helped Tonny Sanabria's 10-yard shot to the net, just minutes after the Costa Rica international was very lucky not to be red carded for a professional foul on the visitors' midfielder Darko Brasanac.

Although Cristiano Ronaldo headed in Marcelo's cross to level just before the break, as the second half progressed it seemed that Madrid were not going to take full advantage of Barcelona's surprise 2-1 defeat at Deportivo La Coruna earlier in the day.

But just three minutes after Betis' Cristiano Piccini was red carded, ex-Sevilla defender Ramos headed his team 2-1 ahead, with Navas' fine 93rd-minute save from Betis substitute Alex Alegria then making sure of the table-topping victory.

Although Navas has come under pressure following other errors in recent defeats at Sevilla and Valencia, the Los Blancos coach told his postmatch news conference at the Bernabeu that the team remained behind their goalkeeper and were grateful for his late contribution in this match.

"That is part of the game, there can be mistakes, it can happen to everyone," Zidane said. "And in the end he saved us. All the players know how important Keylor is for us. In the end he made a save which got us the three points."

Betis coach Victor Sanchez del Amo criticised referee Mateu Lahoz afterwards, especially the decision not to red card Navas when he appeared to take out Brasanac after failing to make contact with the ball having charged out of his penalty area.

"Everyone has their opinion," Zidane said. "I do not comment on referees. The referee made his decisions. I did not see images of [the Navas incident] so I cannot say anything. We deserved the three points."

The victory put Madrid two points ahead of Barca with a game in hand on the Catalans, but Zidane said he did not feel his team were now in control of the title race and had "suffered" against a well-organised Betis team.

"The pressure is always there," he said. "This is not over yet, there is still a long way to go. And we know that. We are happy with the game. We got the three points. We suffered, which is normal, but we had a lot of patience, and the result is fair. They defended well and made it difficult for us on the counter. But in the end we are happy with the result and must congratulate the players."

Madrid have now been behind in five of their last six games in all competitions, with late heroics from Ramos and other teammates regularly required to keep them on track both in La Liga and the Champions League.

"I would be more relaxed scoring two or three goals at the start," Zidane admitted. "But we know that we can score in any moment. Today we had the patience, and we kept a cold head in a difficult moment and came through. We know we are strong at set-pieces. But I would like to score more goals in open play."

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