Van Nistelrooy at Manchester United

Van Nistelrooy playing for Manchester United against Chelsea.Van Nistelrooy signed a five-year contract after passing his medical. He downplayed United's £19 million investment to reporters, saying "The price is not heavy for me - it lifts me up because it means United have big confidence in me." During his first season, Van Nistelrooy scored 23 goals in 32 league games, ending the year on a league record eight-game consecutive scoring streak. The following season, he broke the record of the previous mark of seven he shared with Mark Stein, Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry. He also scored 10 Champions League goals, and was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year. He finished as the top Premier League scorer with 25 in 34 games, including three hat-tricks, and he ended the season on another eight-game scoring streak.



He started the 2003–04 season by scoring twice in his first two league matches, which boosted his consecutive games record to 10. He scored his 100th goal for the club in a 4–3 victory over Everton on 7 February 2004. He scored two goals, one a penalty, in United's victory over Millwall in the 2004 FA Cup Final.
Van Nistelrooy missed most of the 2004–05 season due to injury, but nonetheless scored a Champions League-best eight goals. One of them was his thirtieth career European goal, which he scored in a 2–2 Champions League group stage draw with Lyon on 16 September 2004, overtaking Denis Law's previous club record of 28 goals. Law later said to reporters, "I'm delighted for Ruud. It could not happen to a nicer guy." Manchester United were eliminated by eventual finalists Milan in the knockout stage after going scoreless in both legs.

At the start of the 2005–06 season, Van Nistelrooy scored in United's first four Premier League games. He finished as the second-highest league scorer with 21 goals, behind Arsenal's Thierry Henry. By the end of his fifth season with United, Van Nistelrooy had amassed 150 goals in fewer than 200 starts.


Van Nistelrooy shields the ball during a match against Tottenham Hotspur.Van Nistelrooy was benched for the League Cup final against Wigan Athletic, fuelling speculation of a rift between him and coach Alex Ferguson, which Van Nistelrooy denied. He was nonetheless left on the bench for six consecutive league matches, and though he then returned to the starting line-up and scored match-winners against West Ham United and Bolton Wanderers, fresh doubt spread over Van Nistelrooy's future when he was benched for United's season finale win over Charlton Athletic. Ferguson claimed that Van Nistelrooy was angry at the decision and left the stadium three hours before kick-off.

On 9 May 2006, Setanta Sports reported that Van Nistelrooy's exclusion from the squad was due to a training session fight between him and team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo. Van Nistelrooy allegedly criticised Ronaldo's tendency to hold onto the ball instead of passing to his team-mates, which sparked the fight, after which Van Nistelrooy remarked, "Go crying to your daddy." The article claimed that this was not a reference to Ronaldo's father (who had died earlier in the season), but to United's Portuguese assistant coach, Carlos Queiroz.

Van Nistelrooy signed with Spanish side Real Madrid on 28 July 2006, departing Manchester United after five seasons with a total of 150 goals in 220 appearances, as well as the club's all-time European scoring record with 38 goals
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Ruud Van Nistelrooy Football and Life