COACH Juande Ramos had no doubts about his fringe players being able to step up to the plate as a reshuffled Real Madrid side downed Malaga to continue their relentless pursuit of Primera Liga leaders Barcelona.
With a number of first-team regulars unavailable after returning from international duty with niggles and suspension ruling out Gabriel Heinze, Ramos was forced to ring the changes for the trip to the south coast.
Into the first XI came Christoph Metzelder, Miguel Torres and Rafael Van der Vaart for rare starts, while youngsters Javi Garcia, Dani Parejo and Royston Drenthe all enjoyed time off the bench.
The alterations did not slow Madrid's chase of Barca though, as Gonzalo Higuain's brilliant solo goal just after half-time earned the reigning champions the victory and took their tally to 40 points out of a possible 42 over the last few months.
Ramos, whose team remain six points behind Barca with nine games left, said after the match: "We knew that we were coming to a difficult ground to play against a team who are having a magnificent season.
"Many of our players had played two consecutive games with their national teams and had little rest, and we also had several injuries.
"The players who haven't had so much of a chance to feature played at a great level and it hasn't surprised me.
"I expected them to react like they did and they've done very well."
He added: "Real Madrid dominated the second half and I think we deserved the win."
While Ramos reserved praise for the new faces in the team, it was the more familiar figure of Higuain who made the important breakthrough with his 16th league goal of the season.
Five of those have now come against Malaga, although the young Argentinian joked he has not got any sort of personal vendetta against the Andalusian side.
"I have nothing against Malaga, I always try to score goals and I don't care who our opponents are," he said.
"I had several chances and fortunately the goal I scored allowed us to win the game, but the work was down to all the team.
"We continue our chase of the leaders, it was an important win. We knew that we had a lot of players out but we are all equally important and whoever goes out on pitch will do well.
"I'm very happy because the team went out full of desire. Juande said that we were all important and he's right."
Into the first XI came Christoph Metzelder, Miguel Torres and Rafael Van der Vaart for rare starts, while youngsters Javi Garcia, Dani Parejo and Royston Drenthe all enjoyed time off the bench.
The alterations did not slow Madrid's chase of Barca though, as Gonzalo Higuain's brilliant solo goal just after half-time earned the reigning champions the victory and took their tally to 40 points out of a possible 42 over the last few months.
Ramos, whose team remain six points behind Barca with nine games left, said after the match: "We knew that we were coming to a difficult ground to play against a team who are having a magnificent season.
"Many of our players had played two consecutive games with their national teams and had little rest, and we also had several injuries.
"The players who haven't had so much of a chance to feature played at a great level and it hasn't surprised me.
"I expected them to react like they did and they've done very well."
He added: "Real Madrid dominated the second half and I think we deserved the win."
While Ramos reserved praise for the new faces in the team, it was the more familiar figure of Higuain who made the important breakthrough with his 16th league goal of the season.
Five of those have now come against Malaga, although the young Argentinian joked he has not got any sort of personal vendetta against the Andalusian side.
"I have nothing against Malaga, I always try to score goals and I don't care who our opponents are," he said.
"I had several chances and fortunately the goal I scored allowed us to win the game, but the work was down to all the team.
"We continue our chase of the leaders, it was an important win. We knew that we had a lot of players out but we are all equally important and whoever goes out on pitch will do well.
"I'm very happy because the team went out full of desire. Juande said that we were all important and he's right."
Copyright (c) Press Association
Related Articles
The Santiago Bernabeu: A temple of football
Ronaldo agrees new Real deal
