Ten-man Atletico Madrid missed the chance to top the Primera Division at Christmas as they slipped to a shock 1-0 defeat against struggling Malaga.
With Barcelona at the Club World Cup, a point would have been enough to take Atleti top but Charles scored an 86th-minute winner after the visitors had Gabi sent off.
The result brought to an end Atletico's run of nine consecutive wins and was a first defeat for Diego Simeone's side since September.
Malaga dominated the chances in the first half, with Charles the chief threat.
He had his first opening after only five minutes, heading wide, and a minute later he forced a fine save from Jan Oblak.
Ignacio Camacho's mishit shot was going well wide but Charles cleverly deflected it towards the bottom corner only for Oblak to stick out a hand.
Atletico were being outplayed but Yannick Carrasco did force Carlos Kameni to make a save in the 34th minute with a shot from outside the box.
Fittingly, the final chance of the half went to Charles, who was played in on the right by Camacho.
Oblak was quickly off his line to block and was then helped out by his defence before Charles hooked the follow-up wide with an overhead kick.
Simeone sent on Fernando Torres for the second half in place of Luciano Vietto.
Atletico's chances were dealt a major blow in the 56th minute when Gabi was shown a second yellow card for handball.
Despite the numerical disadvantage, they almost took the lead in the 71st minute as Antoine Griezmann played in Torres but he could not beat Kameni.
And it was Malaga who found a winner four minutes from time as Charles finally beat Oblak, albeit with a large slice of luck.
Nordin Amrabat picked out the striker on the right side of the area and his shot took a huge deflection off Diego Godin before trickling inside the near post with Oblak helpless.