After allowing Real Madrid to claim a point from Sunday night’s Madrid derby, Keylor Navas regretted his team’s failure to collect all three.
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Navas was given a quiet evening by Atletico’s misfiring forwards after Karim Benzema headed Los Blancos into an early lead, but he was beaten by Luciano Vietto’s late strike to force a draw.
And without Navas it could have been much worse for Real, with the Costa Rica stopper making two brilliant saves to keep out Antoine Griezmann’s penalty and a late piledriver from Jackson Martinez.
It was the second penalty save Navas has made this season after also denying Real Betis’s Ruben Castro, and he revealed his spotkicks heroics are a case of practise makes perfect.
“I always study penalties,” he said. “I practise them a lot and God helps me to make the right decisions to make saves.”
Navas, who has made a superb start to the season despite nearly leaving the Bernabeu for Manchester United on the final day of the transfer window, also showed modesty in his assessment of his spectacular late stop from Martinez.
“You just have to stay alert and study the opposition,” he said. Considering the game’s overall pattern, the result was a bad one for Los Blancos who have now dropped points in consecutive league outings after the draw with Malaga.
5 – Atletico have not lost any of their last five league derbies against Real Madrid, their longest run against them. Resistance.
— OptaJose (@OptaJose) October 4, 2015
An error from substitute Alvaro Arbeloa played a key role in the build-up to Vietto’s leveller, and Navas admitted it was a frustrating goal to concede, saying: “We had the game in our hands, but we made a careless mistake and in these games you pay for errors.”
However, he did not accept the suggestion that his team had been too negative, saying: “We wanted to win and tried to play, but they stayed back and waited for an error.”
