Roma's impressive start petered out in the second half, but Real Madrid couldn't capitalise either and the Italians won on penalties.
The Giallorossi played the Spanish powerhouse in Melbourne, in the International Champions Cup tournament.
Both of the teams mixed some of their more prominent stars with a small number of players that required greater testing.
Roma gave a shot to Salih Ucan and Iago Falque, but bolstered them with veterans Daniele De Rossi and Radja Nainggolan in the midfield, and Francesco Totti and Gervinho upfront.
Roma's impressive start petered out in the second half, but Real Madrid couldn't capitalise either and the Italians won on penalties.
The Giallorossi played the Spanish powerhouse in Melbourne, in the International Champions Cup tournament.
Both of the teams mixed some of their more prominent stars with a small number of players that required greater testing.
Roma gave a shot to Salih Ucan and Iago Falque, but bolstered them with veterans Daniele De Rossi and Radja Nainggolan in the midfield, and Francesco Totti and Gervinho upfront.
Real Madrid had superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale supporting 22-year-old striker Jese, while the goal was defended by Keylor Navas.
It was Roma who started out on the stronger foot as less than five minutes into the game a corner resulted in a messy crowd in the box. The ball ricocheted off the crossbar once on a De Rossi shot, while Totti's rebound couldn't find the way in.
It was a taste of things to come as the Lupi started on the right foot. Rudi Garcia's team were consistently impressive in possession and forced Real into a half-dozen corner kicks, though they did not have a very high number of shots on target.
In spite of a strong showing, Totti was substituted after half an hour for Seydou Doumbia.
The Blancos had to wait until past the half-hour for their first serious chance, with a dangerous skewed shot by Dani Carvajal, but they did show evidence of growth.
In the last fifteen minutes of the first half Carvajal, along with a twice-dangerous Gareth Bale, rather revitalised the Merengues.
As the second half kicked off Real Madrid quickly changed shapes completely, substituting seven of their players. Toni Kroos and Karim Benzema replaced Cristiano Ronaldo and Martin Odegaard among others. Lucas Vazquez would soon take the place of Gareth Bale, too.
On the other side of the pitch Juan Iturbe walked on for Gervinho, followed shortly by Alessandro Florenzi and Seydou Keita for Radja Nainggolan and Daniele De Rossi.
The wide array of substitutions slowed down the game as both teams attempted to reorganise themselves and it wasn't until the minute 65' that a Benzema shot provided something like a chance.
While neither of the teams was particularly brilliant, Roma seemed to have lost their rhythm in particular and what little action was left in the game was initiated by Real Madrid.
Ten minutes from the end of the match Real claimed a penalty on a controversial hand-ball contact by Vasilis Torosidis, but it was not awarded.
Lucas Vazquez came close to scoring the opener minutes later with a beautiful curled ball after a series of passes down the left, but the shot went just wide.
It was the end of the efforts as Roma and Real Madrid finished their contest without giving Australian fans the joy of a goal.
The game then went to penalties. Danilo, Kroos, Silva, Isco, Benzema for the Blancos, and then Pjanic, Ljajic, Destro, Florenzi, and Iturbe for Roma, did not fail their respective shots, making it a sudden death contest. Nacho scored and was matched by Paredes. Vazquez then had his shot blocked by De Sanctis, and Keita converted the last shot for a Roma win.
Roma: De Sanctis; Maicon (Torosidis 53'), Yanga-Mbiwa (Capradossi 62'), Castan, Cole (Manolas 51'); Uçan, De Rossi (Florenzi 56'), Nainggolan (Keita 55'); Iago Falgue (Ljajic), Totti (Doumbia 32', Destro 64'), Gervinho (Iturbe 48')
Real Madrid: Navas; Varane (Nacho 47'), Sergio Ramos (Isco 50'), Marcelo (Arbeloa 45'), Carvajal (69'), Modric (Silva 47'), Illarra, Odegaard (Benzema 46'), Ronaldo (Kroos 46'), Bale (Vazquez), Jesé (Cheryshev 46'),