Ruud Van Nistelrooy

The art world is familiar with its Dutch masters, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, spring immediately to mind and similarly the football world has also had its fair share of Dutch legends, Cruyff in the 1970's, Gullitt and Van Basten in the 1980's and a man still plying his skills at the highest level, Ruud Van Nistelrooy. Van Nistelrooy started his career at Den Bosch in the 1993/94 season making a couple of appearances, in all he spent four seasons with the club scoring 17 goals in 69 league appearances before moving to Heerenveen in 1997/98 where he scored 13 goals in 31 league games, this was his only season at the club as in 1998/99 he moved to PSV Eindhoven. Van Nistelrooy's record with PSV was simply phenomenal, in his first season with the club in 1998/99 he scored 31 goals in 34 league appearances, unsurprisingly finishing the season as top scorer. In 1999/2000 he again finished the season as top scorer and though he only managed 23 games, incredily he managed better than a goal a game with 29 goals again finishing the season as top scorer in the league. He only managed 10 games in the 2000/01 season before injury which seemed to put in doubt his record breaking transfer to Manchester United in doubt, but Sir Alex Ferguson knew that in Van Nistelorooy he had a man certain to score goals in the Premiership and waited patiently for the Dutch ace until he was ready to make the move to Old Trafford.

He made his debut for Manchester United at Old Trafford against Fulham in August 2001, making an immediate impact scoring twice in a 3-2 win, he continued to score freely throughout the season with 23 goals from 32 games including a hat trick against Southampton. He fared even better the following season with 25 goals from 34 league games. In 2003/4 Van Nistelrooy again was in prolific form scoring 20 goals in 32 league games, netting a hat trick against Leicester in September, Manchester United were also FA Cup winners in 2004 beating Millwall 3-0, Van Nistelrooy scoring two goals. However the following season was a frustrating one for the Dutchman as he managed only 17 games because of injury, scoring 6 goals, 3 of which were from the penalty spot. Van Nistelrooy was back to his best in the 2005/6 season however scoring 21 goals in 35 league matches, the winning goal against Bolton in April in a 2-1 win, however proved to be Van Nistelrooy's last for United as he was sold by Sir Alex Ferguson at the end of the season after a bust up between the two. There were no shortage of suitors for the prolific Dutchman but it was Real Madrid who won the race to sign him in time for the 2006/7 season. He announched himself to La Liga in spectacular fashion scoring a hat trick away at Levante , then away at Osasuna went one better scoring four times, he finished the season as top scorer in La Liga with 25 goals from 37 league matches and was a fundamental part in Real Madrid's brilliant title triumph.

Van Nistelrooy made his international debut in 1998 against Germany and scored his first goal in 1999 against Morocco in a friendly. Holland failed to make the 2002 World Cup finals but Van Nistelrooy did manage 6 goals in the qualifying competition including two goals against Estonia after coming on as a substitute. Holland made hard work of qualifying for Euro 2004 being forced to go into a two legged play off against Scotland which they won 6-1 on aggregate, Van Nistelrooy scoring a hat trick in the second leg in Amsterdam. Holland made it to the 2006 World Cup without need of a play off, Van Nistelrooy scoring 7 goals in the qualifying campaign but once they were at the finals in Germany, the Dutch gave a disappointing account of themselves losing out in the second round to Portugal, Van Nistelrooy had scored in the group win against the Ivory Coast but then fell out with Marco Van Basten, the Dutch manager and played no part in the bad tempered defeat against Portugal in Nuremberg.

Van Nistelrooy subsequently announced his retirement from international football, happily he later reconsidered his decision and Holland with Van Nistelrooy leading the attack will be at the Euro 2008 championships and Holland will need Van Nistelrooy to be at his best as they have been drawn in a tough group with Italy, France and Romania, perhaps being paired with such strong opposition will bring out the best in one of the greatest goalscorers in modern history, Ruud Van Nistelrooy.