La Liga: First goal was key to Real Madrid's win over Las Palmas, says Zidane

Zinedine Zidane

Real Madrid head coach Zinedine Zidane felt his much-changed side's 3-0 win at Las Palmas was never in doubt once Gareth Bale opened the scoring. Zidane had opted to leave in-form forward Cristiano Ronaldo behind for the trip to Gran Canaria, with one eye on next week's Champions League quarter-final first leg against Juventus in Turin.

Bale fired Los Blancos in front after 26 minutes before Karim Benzema converted a penalty and the Wales forward added another spot-kick early in the second half.

"There's no such thing as a straightforward game, but it got easier for us after the first goal. Las Palmas need to pick up points, and once we'd got the first, it was a bit less complicated. The second half was very end-to-end, we created a lot of chances that we didn't score," Zidane said.

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