At the half-time interval, Lopetegui introduced Casemiro in place of Dani Ceballos, before bringing Isco on for Luka Modric in the 60th minute. Madrid had half an hour in which to stage a comeback and they came a whisker away from restoring parity courtesy of a Bale free-kick from range. Unai Simón failed to gather the Welshman's effort in, but the hosts' custodian reacted quickly to save Sergio Ramos's effort from the rebound. Four minutes later, Bale was again in the thick of the action as he sent over a right-footed cross that was met by Isco, who caught everyone by surprise as he ghosted into the box and levelled terms with a textbook glancing header.

Further chances
Whilst the scoreboard suggested that the contest was finely balanced, events on the field told a different story, where the visitors looked the more likely to go on and take victory. Madrid came close to forging ahead when Ramos unleashed a sumptuous pass from his own half towards Marco Asensio. The Majorca-born attacker exquisitely brought the ball under his spell and bore down on Simón, who got his body in the way to prevent a second Madrid goal. From then on in, Madrid poured forward in search of victory, but the winning goal ultimately proved elusive.