Clube Desportivo Nacional, commonly known simply as Nacional or sometimes as Nacional da Madeira, is a football club based in Funchal, central Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. Founded in 1910, this team continues to compete in the Primeira Liga, the country's top football league.
An important turning point in the club's history was its promotion back to the first league in the 2002-03 season. The following year, in the 2003-04 season, we witnessed the team experiencing one of its brightest periods. Nacional finished the league in fourth place, leaving Sporting de Braga behind. One of the names guarding the team's goal at that time was defensive midfielder Paulo Assunรงรฃo.
In addition, Adriano, who worked like a goal machine in the offensive line, scored nineteen goals, while Miguelito was one of the most effective names of the team as a winger.
Nacional also showed a very assertive performance in the national cups and reached the quarter-finals in the local cup. However, he had to complete his journey in the European arena in a shorter time. In the UEFA Cup, in which he participated for the first time in the 2004-05 season, he was eliminated by the Spanish representative Sevilla FC in the first round, and in the 2006-07 season, he parted ways after the match with the Romanian team Rapid Bucureศti.
In the 2008-09 season, Nacional again achieved fourth place, and Nenรช, who won the Golden Shoe award by scoring twenty goals that season, had a great impact on this success. In the same year, he reached the semi-finals of the Portuguese Cup against FC Paรงos de Ferreira, but was eliminated with a score of 5-4 on aggregate.
The following season, he was forced to send Nenรช to Cagliari Calcio for 4.5 million euros, the highest transfer fee in the club's history. Despite this, he achieved great success by beating FK Zenit in the UEFA Europa League in August 2009. They beat Zenit 4-3 at home and went through the rounds with the goal scored by Rรบben Micael in the last minute, after being down 1-0 in the rematch in Russia.
Matched with Athletic Bilbao, Austria Wien and Werder Bremen in the group, Nacional could not continue in the Europa League, although they defeated the Austrian team 5-1 on their home field.
