Schuster salutes Madrid workrate

Bernd Schuster hailed the effort and commitment which ensured his Real Madrid CF side made a winning start to UEFA Champions League Group C against Werder Bremen. Ruud van Nistelrooy's 50th goal in the competition clinched the points with 16 minutes to go after Boubacar Sanogo had cancelled out Raúl González's early goal for Madrid. Despite the result, visiting coach Thomas Schaaf declared himself satisfied with the performance if not the outcome.

Bernd Schuster, Madrid coach
The team worked for this victory against difficult opponents. We fought tonight and deserved to win. Our opponents' tactics were not good for us, we looked for different ways to score but Bremen are a difficult team to beat. Fernando Gago worked hard tonight, marking Diego and we must help him more, but I congratulate him for his work because Diego is a great player. We have some things to resolve; we didn't practice together for two weeks because of international games and we must improve our defence but I'm very happy. The pre-season was not as we wanted but at the end of it we started to get better. The results of that work are helping us but we are not at the level that am I looking for. Raúl is a fighter, he never gives up and he will never drop his quality. I'm very happy with the victory, we really worked for it.

Thomas Schaaf, Bremen coach
Congratulations to Real Madrid, the result is fair. We wanted to play more offensively but their quality decided the game. We did many things well, we had chances to score and possession of the ball and that was what we were looking for. Real Madrid have a clear philosophy; to look for empty spaces and create chances to score. I'm satisfied, it gives me hope for the games to come.