Carlo Ancelotti’s side opened the scoring just 10 minutes into proceedings when a passage of patient play was ruthlessly finished after Kylian Mbappe slipped the ball through to Ferland Mendy, who selflessly cut it back for Brahim Diaz to convert.
Los Blancos continued to comfortably play around their passive hosts with Rodrygo heading onto the roof of the net, while the home crowd at Estadio Benito Villamarin quickly grew frustrated with referee Alejandro Hernandez’s decisions.
The hosts’ first attempt was a speculative Ricardo Rodriguez strike from range in the 22nd minute, and Marc Bartra then sent an instinctive shot wide before Jesus Rodriguez failed to get a clean contact on a Youssouf Sabaly cross.
Even so, Los Verdiblancos had started to show more intent and were rewarded in the 34th minute, when Johnny Cardoso met Isco’s cross with a powerful header that beat Thibaut Courtois despite the goalkeeper getting a hand on it.
Cardoso almost scored from another corner in the first half’s final seconds when his header took a deflection off Aurelien Tchouameni, although Courtois reacted brilliantly to tip it wide.
The midfielder and Cucho Hernandez each had a shot blocked shortly after the restart, with Bartra doing brilliantly to halt Mbappe between those efforts.
They then had a penalty when Isco released Jesus, who was brought down by Antonio Rudiger, allowing Isco to score from the spot despite Courtois going the right way.
Arda Guler had a shot blocked by Ricardo shortly after his introduction as the visitors looked for a response, but Los Verdiblancos kept going as Hernandez’s attempt trickled agonisingly wide.
The visitors applied pressure as time progressed but Endrick fired wide and Adrian held Vinicius Junior’s shot from range, as Betis took all three points and extended their record to just one defeat from the last nine LaLiga matches, going up to sixth for now.
In contrast, Madrid have gone winless in three consecutive away league matches in the same season for the first time since May 2023. More importantly, Los Blancos stay behind Barcelona and could now be overtaken by Atletico Madrid.