However, Madrid were made to struggle against their lowly visitors and, after Albacete had drawn level within 60 seconds through Livero Parri, it looked as if the winning goal was never going to arrive until Zinedine Zidane popped up to head home the decider from close range.

The result saw the defending champions go level on points at the top of the Primera Liga with Deportivo La Coruna.

This week’s international fixtures forced Madrid coach Carlos Queiroz to make some changes to his line-up.

Although he welcomed back Michel Salgado, he decided to rest Ivan Helguera and Ronaldo, both of whom had played twice for their countries in the past eight days and gave rare starts to Javier Portillo and Borja Fernandez.

It was Borja’s first Primera Liga start and he took his place alongside Beckham in the middle of the park.

Albacete had never won at the Bernabeu but began confidently for a side third from bottom of the table with Parri and Carlos Aranda both looking lively.

Nevertheless, the first opportunity of the game fell to Madrid. Albacete defender Unai Vergara made a mess of Luis Figo’s low cross from the left and the ball reached Raul only for him to mis-control and waste the chance.

Figo was again the provider after 19 minutes, this time his cross from the right evaded the defence only for the incoming Santiago Solari to hit the post with a neatly-placed volley.

Salgado crashed a long-range shot well wide and Portillo fired straight at Carlos Roa when clean through but on the whole the game struggled to take off as the visitors kept it tight and denied Madrid space in vital areas.

However, Beckham’s effort roused the crowd who previously had been quick to whistle and jeer Madrid’s efforts.

With the deadlock broken, the hosts would have expected to take a grip on the game but a minute later Albacete were level as Parri scored a scorching left-foot volley to send the 3,000 travelling fans wild and had Casillas not saved smartly from Aranda on the stroke of half-time things could have been even worse for Real.

Albacete continued to keep it tight for the first 18 minutes of the second half, prompting Queiroz to bring on Ronaldo for Portillo, who had struggled to get into the game.

Zidane came close with a header from a Figo cross but as time dragged on the visitors must have started to think about taking only their second point from six trips to the capital.

Roa struggled to save shots from Zidane and Ronaldo, Beckham hit a free kick over the crossbar before Zidane put an end to Madrid’s torment with a close-range header.

Even then they had to suffer as Albacete won a pair of late free-kicks, but Laurent Viaud managed to send them both over the crossbar.