Zinedine Zidane was critical of his Real Madrid players after they dropped two points in their first home game of the season.
“You can lose the ball, that can happen, but we were out of position to defend,” the Real Madrid coach fumed. “We had done the most difficult, scoring a goal, and then we need to get the ball the f*** out of there for the rest of the game.”
“We know we have to play the 90 minutes. We can’t just play 50 or 60 minutes,” he added of Real Madrid’s late capitulation.
Madrid scored on 82 minutes through Karim Benzema but Sergi Guardiola equalised with two minutes left to leave the Santiago Bernabeu with the same sinking feeling from last season.
“We did the most difficult which was to score,” said Zidane. “Our second half was not the best but we scored and in just a few minutes we conceded. We were out of position. The first half was good. But we lacked the ability to finish and so the result leaves a bad taste.”
“It’s not losing the ball because that can happen but we were out of position to defend. We have to have more conviction when the game asks something different of us. Yesterday I said that any team can come here and cause us problems but we have to play for 90 minutes.”
James Rodriguez played his first game for over 800 days after two years away on loan at the Bayern Munich. “James had a good game. He came off because he had a slight knock,” Zidane added.
Real Madrid substitute Vinicius also failed to inspire. Asked about the Brazilian winger Zidane struggled for a comment. He said: “Vinicius, well he came on but we were worse in the second half.”
