Defender Ricardo Carvalho celebrated his home debut for Real Madrid with the goal that gave Jose Mourinho his first BBVA Primera Liga win at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
The former Chelsea and Porto player, who is now at his third different club with Mourinho, was on hand to slide home the only goal of the match to give Madrid a win they deserved against an Osasuna side lacking in confidence and ambition.
Real Madrid kicked off the game boosted by the news of FC Barcelona's shock defeat to Hercules and with Pepe and Cristiano Ronaldo in Jose Mourinho' s starting 11.
Karim Benzema and Mesut Ozil also started for Real Madrid, while Osasuna played a familiar looking 4-2-3-1 formation.
The visitors didn't look intimidated by the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, where the pitch was in poor condition due to a fungal condition that has affected the grass.
Ronaldo had a header blocked for Madrid, while Miguel Flao headed wide for Osasuna.
Higuain had the next chance for a Madrid side that was again lacking in fluidity, but his far post header went wide, before Nekounam headed Patxi Pual' s free kick over for Osasuna.
Madrid were slightly on top, but were looking far from convincing in a first half that had little to talk about and it was no surprise when the half time break arrived with the score still 0-0.
The home side needed just three minutes of the second half to open the score: an Osasuna free kick was cleared and Madrid launched a counter-attack, which saw Ozil find Ronaldo 10 yards from goal.
Ricardo saved from close range, but Ronaldo poked the rebound to Carvalho who only had to side-foot the ball into the empty Osasuna net.
Higuain should have doubled the lead when clean through after 63 minutes, but Ricardo parried his shot wide for a corner. A minute later Ozil went close from a narrow angle after Flao broke the offside trap.
A lacklustre Benzema was replaced by Pedro Leon for Madrid with 20 minutes remaining as the game began to lose its way. Osasuna were not creating any chances, while, with the exception of Ozil and Sergio Ramos, Madrid were also looking sluggish.
Higuain wasted another chance to make the points safe with 10 minutes to go as Ricardo made another decent save, but with Osasuna failing to put Iker Casillas under pressure on one single occasion, it didn't matter in the end.