Real Madrid ace Cristiano Ronaldo fluffed his penalty as they were held 1-1 by Malaga on Sunday.

The Portuguese headed the Merengues in front late in the first half at La Rosaleda but just a minute later had a spot-kick saved by Carlos Kameni, and in the second half Malaga grabbed a deserved equaliser through centre-back Raul Albentosa.

The hosts might even have snatched a winner late on had it not been for some great goalkeeping by Madrid's Keylor Navas, but Zinedine Zidane's side fall nine points behind Barcelona with 13 games left of the campaign.

"Today we dropped two points, but we'll never throw the towel in. There are still a lot of points to play for, there are 38 points to play for, and we're going to keep going. It was a difficult game. We're not going to relax, for me there's no such thing. We've got La Liga and the Champions League and we're going to fight right until the end," said Zidane.

"There are points at stake and there's still a long way to go in the Liga season. The other teams can drop points, but I'm not thinking about the other teams. I'm just thinking about us carrying on regardless of what happens. We prepared well during the week and I'm going to have to analyse the game. The players put a lot of effort in today. The game was there to be won and it's true that they fashioned a lot of chances against us."