Real Madrid on Sunday gave up a late goal to fall 1-2 to Real Betis and slip to second place in La Liga just a week after taking the lead by beating Barcelona in the Clasico.
The Blancos came into Sunday’s match at Seville’s Benito Villamarin stadium trailing Barca by 2 points after the Blaugrana’s hard-fought victory on Saturday over Real Sociedad.
“It was a poor game for us from beginning to end,” said manager Zinedine Zidane as quoted by club’s official webiste.
“It’s a pity because we had a chance to put in a good performance but we didn’t. It was hard for us, we gave the ball away a lot and I have no explanation. I’m the person responsible. We are going to analyse what happened, but today we can’t be happy with our performance,” he added.
In the 40th minute, Madrid’s Sergio Ramos clattered into Fekir and the ball rolled to Betis defender Sidnei, who hammered home to put the hosts ahead 1-0. Soon, Karim Benzema converted — his first goal in eight matches — to bring the Blancos level.
However, Cristian Tello locked the game in favour of Betis with 8 minutes to go in the match.
“The players have tried, but nothing good has come out of it today and in the end, I’m to blame. I have to analyse the match to see what has happened to us. After this game we have to look ahead because what we did until now wasn’t so bad. We have 11 matches left and we are going to fight for LaLiga until the end,” the manager said.
(With inputs from IANS)