Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 7y

Zinedine Zidane credits Sergio Ramos' 'big personality' for Real Madrid's draw

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane praised his team's "heart" and the "big personality" of Sergio Ramos after the Blancos captain headed a late equaliser in Saturday's 1-1 draw in El Clasico at Barcelona.

The hosts seemed to have bounced back into the title race with a late lead thanks to Luis Suarez's header, but Ramos rose in the 90th minute to nod in Luka Modric's free kick and stun the Camp Nou.

Ramos has a history of late crucial headers -- especially in Champions League finals -- and this one kept his team six points clear in the table and well set for their first La Liga championship since 2012.

Zidane said in his postmatch news conference that Ramos and his teammates had the character to keep going until the end, and often got their reward.

"[Ramos] has this, he is such a big personality," Zidane said. "In games like this he never drops his hands, keeps lifting his teammates and at the end he was there. Having him is good for us.

"We kept going and the heart of the team stood out again. After what we have achieved together, we believe until the end.

"And we got a draw which is important, it is not easy to get points here."

Zidane denied that the late equaliser would be a decisive blow in the title race, while saying that his team might have been ahead before half-time, and a point apiece was a fair outcome on the balance of play.

"I don't believe this is a blow for Barca's morale," he said. "We have six points, but it does not change. We must keep working, this [league] is very long. I don't know if the result is fair or not, but it's what it is.

"If we had scored in the first half, it might have been a different game. It was not like this, the second half we found it more difficult, especially after they scored.

"But we got a point and we keep picking them up. It does not taste like a victory but it is a good point, we keep picking them up, and we will see now what happens in the next game."

With Gareth Bale and Toni Kroos injured, Zidane had again reshuffled his team and started in a 4-3-3 shape, before changing things again during the game and finishing with little-used striker Mariano up front to try and get team back into the game.

The former galactico player said his deep squad was full of different types of players who give him lots of varied options.

"We have that variety in this team," Zidane said. "We have many different players, who can bring you different things, if you change the shape of the team. That is the good thing we have in this team.

"Today we saw that we are all important players, and we will need them all from here until the end."

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