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Real Madrid needed a late Casemiro strike to prevent themselves from falling to an embarrassing defeat to lowly Belgian side Club Brugge at the Santiago Bernabeu.
The visitors had raced into a 2-0 first-half lead, but second-half strikes by Sergio Ramos and Casemiro ensured both sides shared the spoils in what was an eventful game in the Spanish capital.
Nigerian striker Emmanuel Bonaventure Dennis was the star of the show, as he scored a brace inside 40 minutes to send silence a packed Bernabeu stadium. The first was fortuitously gotten after his mistimed shot crippled past Thibaut Courtois and was initially ruled out for offside before a VAR check rescinded the decision.
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Five minutes before half-time, the 21-year-old Dennis got his second of the evening after he was on hand to capitalize from Luka Modric's careless pass to put the domestic table-toppers 2-0 up. This saw him become the third-youngest player to score a brace against Real Madrid in the Champions League after Alexander Pato and Delli Ali and put his side firmly in the driving seat.
Real Madrid's skipper Sergio Ramos halved the deficit 10 minutes into the second half after VAR checks revealed him to be marginally onside and a red card to Club Brugge skipper Ruud Vommer paved the way for Caemiro to equalize and spare Zinedine Zidane's blushes.
The stalemate leaves Real Madrid playing catch-up at this early point in the campaign and here, we highlight four talking points from the surprise 2-2 draw with Club Brugge in the Champions League.
#4 Defensive frailties comes to the fore again
Real Madrid's struggles at the back are well documented, and having started the campaign with nine goals conceded in the first four matches of the season, fans must have thought it would be another long season of goals being shipped in at the back.
However, Zinedine Zidane's men followed that embarrassing 3-0 defeat to PSG on matchday 1 with three consecutive clean sheets in LaLiga (the first time they have managed such under his management) and this feat was made the more impressive in that they faced both Sevilla and Atletico Madrid in that run.
The game against Club Brugge proved that those clean sheets were nothing more than a false dawn, as the Belgians got at the Real Madrid backline with ease, drawing flashbacks to their Champions League ouster at the hands of Ajax last season.
Thibaut Courtois was substituted at half-time for what was reported to be stomach upset, and though he was powerless to do anything about the goals that went past him, the fact of the matter is that he conceded two goals from just three shots he faced.
He was booed by the Bernabeu crowd which is an indication that Madridistas are getting fed up with their team's defensive shortcomings.
#3 Eden Hazard still failing to provide a spark
A transfer that was nine years in the making finally came to an end when Eden Hazard arrived Real Madrid for a club-record fee of €100m in June.
The 28-year-old had starred with Chelsea for seven seasons and had elevated himself as one of the premier players in the world and it was expected that he would bring this form with him to the Bernabeu to help lessen the impact of Cristiano Ronaldo's departure.
An injury sustained a day to the start of the new campaign delayed his Real Madrid debut, but having made his much-awaited return in the 3-2 LaLiga victory over Levante in the middle of September, it has been one subdued performance after another from the Belgian skipper. He even admitted at a press conference that he needed to do more to be considered a galactico, and this need to prove himself seems to be weighing him down.
Against Club Brugge, Hazard seemed unsure of himself and was guilty of trying to be chivalrous by passing to teammates when a player of his ability should have taken shots at goal and he showed his frustration by getting a yellow card in injury time.
It was a very underwhelming performance from Hazard, and while his quality cannot be questioned, he would do well to start rediscovering his best form before a notoriously demanding Real Madrid fanbase turns on him.
#2 VAR proves its usefulness
The game of football has seen numerous innovations added over the years, with the most novel being the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).
Having been test-run across various leagues and competitions over the last few years, the technology has now grown into mainstream acceptance and was belatedly used in the Champions League knockout rounds for the first time last season.
A day after it generated positive praise for overturning a blatantly wrong offside call against Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the Premier League clash between Manchester United and Arsenal, VAR was once again in the news for all the right reasons.
In the Champions League fixture between Real Madrid and Club Brugge, it helped overturn not one but two wrong offside calls, with the overview of Sergio Ramos' goal being of note after TV angles had wrongly shown him to be offside.
While VAR might still be controversial to a large degree, it is a welcome development in football and as the fixture at the Bernabeu showed, humans would always be prone to shocking errors no matter how much training they get and the technology is here to help lessen the impact of their misjudgment.
#1 Club Brugge players give a good account of themselves
Real Madrid are 13-time European Champions and the Santago Bernabeu is one of the most hallowed and respected stadiums in the world.
By contrast, Club Brugge are very much minnows on the continent, and while they might be relative powerhouses back home in Belgium, they are nowhere near matching the firepower and prestige of Real Madrid.
The Champions League clash against the Spanish giants saw them come up with some of the best players in history and while it might have been easy to cower in awe of the superior might of their opponents, the Belgians did not do any of that.
Rather, they manned up and took the fight to Real Madrid, going toe-to-toe with them and neverminded the fact that they were at the Santiago Bernabeu.
In total, they managed four shots on target and might have nicked an extra goal but for a wonderful reflex save by Alfonso Areola to deny Emmanuel Denis his hat-trick.
The Nigerian was arguably the standout player on the day, but alongside him, South African international Percy Tau wreaked havoc against Sergio Ramos and co. while Eduard Sobol controlled proceedings from the middle and sliced open the Real defence time and again with his passing.
All in all, it was a wonderful performance from Club Brugge and though Zinedine Zidane might have underrated them a bit by opting to rest with Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez (who have been standout players), he would not be making such mistakes again ahead of the return leg in Brugge.
