Schuster admitted following last week's 2-0 Champions League win over BATE Borisov that he was disappointed with the way his players appeared to put the brakes on after establishing their two-goal lead.

But that was not to be the case against Sporting and it was only when the champions had run up seven goals that they finally started to take things a little easier against their hapless opponents.

It took Madrid 18 minutes to get off the mark at the Bernabeu but they then blitzed Sporting with seven goals in just 46 minutes either side of half-time, with Rafael van der Vaart (three), Raul (two), Arjen Robben and Gonzalo Higuain the men on the scoresheet.

Schuster insists he did not have the BATE match on his mind during Wednesday's game, but did admit: "I said I wanted my team to play differently once they are winning 3-0 and here they scored four more goals.

"I wanted them to do that against BATE, but at least we learned from the mistake of not doing so."

Van der Vaart may have been the best player on the park and scored a memorable hat-trick, but the biggest cheers were reserved for Raul's double strike in the second half.

The hugely-popular Madrid captain has not found playing time or goals easy to come by so far this season, but he finally got off the mark in La Liga with two close-range finishes - the second one a superb scooped effort over the goalkeeper.

Those goals did not only go down well with the fans, but also with Raul's team-mates, with Robben saying on his club's website: "The whole team is happy for Raul because he is our captain and therefore very important to us. He did a good job."

Higuain added: "Raul had a great game and scored two goals. We are happy about that. He deserved it."