All About Sports: Ruud van Nistelrooy

Rutgerus Johannes Martinus van Nistelrooy(born 1 July 1976), better known as Ruud van Nistelrooy, is a Dutch footballer who plays as a striker for Málaga CF in Spain's La Liga. He is the second-highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 60 goals. He is a three-time Champions League top scorer, as well as a top scorer in three different European domestic leagues.Van Nistelrooy began his career with Den Bosch, before moving onto Heerenveen, eventually making a name for himself at PSV Eindhoven where he won two Dutch leagues. His goalscoring record at PSV attracted attention from Manchester United; a deal was in place in the summer of 2000, but because of injury problems his move was secured a year later for a then British record fee of £19 million. His time at United was successful, winning the Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and FA Community Shield, along with winning the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year twice. Van Nistelrooy hit 150 goals in just 219 games for United, as well as being their all time European record goalscorer, but fell out of favour towards the end of his tenure. Real Madrid then secured his services in 2006. Although an injury blighted the end of his days with Madrid, he did win La Liga twice and the Supercopa de España before signing for Hamburg during the January transfer window in 2010. After a successful season-and-a-half with Hamburg, he moved back to Spain with Málaga CF in the summer of 2011.

Van Nistelrooy has 70 caps and 35 goals for the Netherlands. He made his debut for the national team in a friendly match against Germany on 18 November 1998.[25] However, the cruciate ligament injury which postponed his transfer to Manchester United also ruled van Nistelrooy out of Euro 2000.As the Dutch failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, van Nistelrooy did not make his tournament debut for the Netherlands until Euro 2004, where he and the Czech Republic's Milan Baroš were the only players to score in all three group stage matches. During a 2006 World Cup qualifying match, he scored in the Dutch's 4–0 hammering of bottom-placed Andorra and was yellow-carded for going to Andorra player Antoni Lima and celebrating in front of him, following an incident six minutes before when van Nistelrooy missed a penalty and Lima laughed at him.He was a part of coach Marco van Basten's squad for the 2006 World Cup finals, for which he served as the official FIFA/SOS ambassador. He started, and was substituted, in all of the Netherlands' group stage matches, and scored his lone goal against the Côte d'Ivoire. Van Nistelrooy was dropped to the bench for the Netherlands' second round match, which saw them eliminated by Portugal.Van Basten left the striker out of the squad for a friendly against Ireland on 16 August 2006.Dirk Kuyt replaced Van Nistelrooy in their next match against Portugal in September.After Klaas-Jan Huntelaar was unavailable for Euro 2008 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Belarus due to injury, van Nistelrooy refused van Basten's request to take his place on the roster.

On 23 January 2007, van Nistelrooy announced his retirement from international football following some disputes with coach Marco van Basten. However, after several phone conversations and at the persuasion of veteran Edwin van der Sar, both player and coach put aside their differences. Van Basten announced four months later that van Nistelrooy was returning to the Oranje.On 8 September, Van Nistelrooy filled Huntelaar's spot, as previously requested, for the qualifier against Bulgaria, scoring in a 2–0 victory, and scored the winning goal four days later in injury time of the Netherlands' win over Albania.At Euro 2008, van Nistelrooy scored for the Netherlands in their decisive 3–0 victory over Italy in the group stage, and scored the equaliser in their eventual 3–1 loss to Russia in the quarter-finals. On 4 August, he again announced his retirement from international competition.During the build up to the 2010 World Cup van Nistelrooy again made himself available, but was left out by van Marwijk, the Dutch team coach.After main striker Robin van Persie suffered an injury during a match with his club Arsenal, van Marwijk gave van Nistelrooy a chance to reclaim his position as the main striker of the Netherlands' national team. Van Nistelrooy was invited to two Netherlands' Group E qualification matches for Euro 2012 against San Marino and Finland. He scored in the 5–0 victory against San Marino on 3 September 2010.He was again recalled to the squad in March 2011 for two Euro 2012 qualification games with Hungary, after injuries to strikers Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Arjen Robben and Theo Janssen. In the away game on 25 March he appeared as a late substitute for Dirk Kuyt while in the return game in Amsterdam four days later he came off the bench to score his 35th international goal.adding it is 'wonderful to be able to add something to this Oranje team', as he told Berend Scholten.