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German giants Werder Bremen open their Group L campaign with a trip to Madeira to take on the conquerors of Zenit St.Petersburg- Nacional. Sign up with the Live Sport Network to watch high quality Nacional vs Werder Bremen streams and other Europa League games live as they happen.

As mentioned before, Nacional were surprise qualifiers for the group stage, beating highly fancied Zenit St. Petersburg in the play-off round. The Madeiran outfit won the first leg 4-3 at home, and drew the return leg in Russia to progress 5-4 on aggregate. The win in the home leg was also Nacional’s first ever win in European competition.

Nacional have only taken two points from their first four Portuguese Liga fixtures. Their last game was against Rio Ave, which they lost 2-0. Rio played the last twenty odd minutes with ten men, but managed to stave off Nacional’s efforts till the final whistle was blown.

Last season’s UEFA Cup finalists Werder Bremen had a far more easy path to the group stage. The Green-Whites thrashed Kazakh outfit Aktobe 8-3 over two legs. Werder originally qualified for the Europa League as winners of last season’s German Cup.

Werder currently have eight points from five games in the Bundesliga, and were held to a draw by Hannover in their weekend fixture. Thomas Schaaf’s men dominated the game against their north German rivals, but failed to get the goal that would have given them their third successive victory in the Bundesliga.

If Nacional are to harbour any hopes of progressing from the group stages, they must take full advantage of their home fixtures. Werder are probably the strongest side in the group, with the likes of Mezut Ozil, Marko Marin, Claudio Pizarro and Tim Borowski in their squad. Watch Nacional vs Werder Bremen live to see who emerges triumphant in Madeira on Thursday night.