Football

Karim Benzema’s late penalty miss proves costly as Real Madrid drop first points of this year’s La Liga

Karim Benzema missed a penalty late in the piece as Real Madrid dropped points for the first time in seven matches against Osasuna in their home fixture at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium on Sunday. For Osasuna, a man was sent off during the latter stages of the game.

Benzema, who has made a comeback to the Real Madrid side after injury, won a spot-kick but then fired it against the crossbar, and also had a goal disallowed for offside as Madrid tried to force a way through. Benzema shot the penalty slightly off the bar and over in the 79th minute, after being fouled inside the area by defender Unai Garcia, who was shown a red card straightaway when VAR was pressed into service.

The attacker from France had a goal chalked off a minute later for offside and Vinicius had a bullet shot kept out by Sergio Herrera a little later, as Real Madrid went all out for the win.

Osasuna, however, held on to take a point much to the disappointment of the fans at home who were not at all satisfied with the result in the end. Real Madrid and archrivals Barcelona are both on the same points as of now with 19 points at the top of the standings. Barca, though, are ahead on goal difference. The point at Santiago Bernabeu lifted Osasuna to sixth on 13 points.

“What we were missing was scoring that penalty, normally Karim scores them,”  Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti told DAZN.

“He had no problem playing the 90 minutes. It’s been a month since he’s played, he has to get his best form back. He did his part, he had the chance from the penalty. It’s an accident, sometimes it happens.”

“We were quite solid at the back,” insisted Carlo Ancelotti. “We conceded a goal from a deep cross, it was quite strange. The team was balanced, the objective is always to be strong to avoid conceding.”