Raul and Van Nistelrooy does it for Madrid

Real Madrid 2 - 1 Werder Bremen

Ruud Van Nistelrooy scored a second-half winner for Real Madrid as they saw off the challenge of Werder Bremen in an abosrbing encounter in the Santiago Bernabéu on Tuesday evening.

The Dutchman's goal ensured that Bernd Schuster began his first European adventure in charge of los Merengues with a win after Raúl had netted the opener before the break.

Werder made a real game of it as they refused to sit back and defend in numbers after equalising through Boubacar Sanogo and always looked capable of taking something from the encounter.

With both sides keen to make an impression the game started at a frantic pace, but neither keeper was troubled until the 13th minute when Tim Wiese caught an ambitious long range effort from Wesley Sneijder.

Just two minutes later and the opening goal arrived as Van Nistelrooy edged down the left of the area before clipping the ball into the near post where Raúl headed inside Wiese's near post to put Madrid ahead.

The home fans were still celebrating when Werder equalised as Dusko Tosic curled in a cross fom the left lank and Sanogo edged in front of his marker to toe poke the ball goalwards and was delighted to see Casillas let it slip through his hands and into the net.

As the visitors maintained their two-pronged attack and held on to the belief that a flat back four would be good enough to prevent Madrid from running awya with the game, it provided plenty of space for the two teams to play in.

That resulted in a quick pace being maintained and surging runs creating an end-to-end spectacle, but therewere still not many clear chances in front of goal.

Higuaín went close eight minutes before the break with a curling shot that just swerved past the far post, while Daniel Jensen kept Casillas on his toes with a drive from outside the area.

Schaaf appeared to give his players orders to continue pushing forward and in the first few minutes of the second period Werder pressed Madrid back with Diego pulling the strings.

At the other end Gonzalo Higuaín fired over the bar before Jurica Vranjes failed to connect with the ball and shot wide after a strong run from Diego.

Hugo Almeida's introduction added some extra spice to the visitors' attack and he had an early shot that flew just wide of the goal,before Wiese denied Van Nistelrooy at close range.

With 16 minutes to go one team finally gave way and it was Werder that were unable to prevent a clinical Madrid attack from finding its way through.

Guti rolled the ball into Raúl and the skipper flicked it out to the Van Nistelrooy who sent the keeper the wrong way by shaping to shoot in the far corner before rolling it inside the near post.

It was a fine finish from a player that had looked slightly out of sorts in front of goal earlier in the game, but he will grab the headlines tomorrow.

Werder did give up and continued to steel the ball in midfield and test the Madrid back-line, but they were unable to truly open up the home team's defence before the end.

Arjen Robben made his official debut when he replaced Raúl seven minutes from the end and the summer signing was given a rousing ovation, although there was scant time for him to make an impression.