Madrid: Real Madrid showed that they can be successful without David Beckham, who was watching from the VIP stands, as they claimedtheir first win in four outings with a 1-0 victory over Real Zaragoza on Sunday.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy got the only goal to keep the Spanish giants in thirdplace but move them to just two points behind the league leaders Sevilla.

"There's been a lot of talk about players not continuing at this clubin the last few days. (Real coach Fabio) Capello took a firm decision,"said Real Madrid's sporting director Pedrag Mijatovic after the game.

"He (Beckham) has signed with another club so it was obviously therewere going to be few opportunities for him to play.

"But you can see that we have young players who are verymotivated."

Van Nistelrooy got his tenth goal of the season in typical poaching fashionafter 41 minutes.

Jose Antonio Reyes sent a short corner to Robinho, who in turn put a passacross the face of the goal for new Argentine signing Gonzalo Higuain to turnthe ball back and leave van Nistelrooy with the job of sidefooting the ballinto the net.

Real marginally had the best of an uninspiring first half before the VanNistelrooy goal but they stepped up a gear and dominated the second halfdespite not adding to their tally.

Higuain was particularly impressive on his debut in the Santiago Bernabeuproviding some telling passes and had several good shots.

"I'm very happy. I had a good feeling here," said Higuain, who hasmoved quickly to step into the slot alongside Van Nistelrooy that is likely tobe soon vacated permanently by another departing superstar Ronaldo.

Ruben De La Red also almost scored after 68 minutes, just a few secondsafter taking over from Reyes, but had his shot just turned away for a corner byZaragoza goalkeeper Cesar Perez.

Ironically, Zaragoza are currentlynegotiating for the loan of De la Red, one of the brightest stars of the RealMadrid reserve team that plies its trade in the Spanish second division.

De La Red has said that he wants to go to get more top level playing timebut Capello's decision to axe Beckham and Antonio Cassano could open up a placefor him in Real's first team squad.

Robinho also went close 16 minutes before the end after outpacing Zaragoza's flagging defenders but was just fractionallyoff-target.

The closest Zaragoza came to scoring waswhen Gerard Pique sent the ball into the box from the edge of the area and ithit the post, although more by accident than design.

One negative note for Real Madrid was club captain Raul Gonzalez straininghis right hamstring early in the game.

He was replaced by Robinho after 14 minutes although the injury did notappear too serious and Raul spent the rest of the game in the dug out.

Real's under-fire coach Capello celebrated the win by making an obscenegesture towards a section of the crowd that had been calling for his head afterthe run of recent poor results.

The Spanish media also speculated on Sunday that disgruntled Chelsea boss JoseMourinho could take over from Capello in the summer.