Ruud van Nistelrooy News Archives

Images courtesy of Ian Blanchard and the English Football Association.

In February 2008, I had the pleasure and privilege to interview Mr. Ian Blanchard, who became the Head of National Referee Development at the FA in 2005. He is responsible for the recruitment, retention, and development of all referees involved in the National game through to Supply League level. He also manages seven Regional Referees Managers.

At Euro 2008, three FA referees are taking part:

• Howard Webb
• Darren Cann
• Mike Mullarkey

Recent Controversy Over the First Dutch Goal Against Italy

On Monday night in Bern, the first Dutch goal by Ruud Van Nistelrooy created significant debate and subsequent discussion as we witnessed on Marco Pantanella’s excellent game report. I have contacted Mr. Blanchard, and he was kind enough to provide his expert analysis of the situation for all of us at Soccerlens.

After viewing the controversial goal by Van Nistelrooy on Monday night, along with the ensuing discussion, would you be kind enough to clarify the interpretation of the law?In your experience, does this type of situation happen very often? Are most players or managers aware of the ruling when a defender (Panucci) either takes himself out of the play, or in this case, was pushed by his goalkeeper?

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Looking at the world of football through the eyes of the press can give you a perverted and totally false view of what’s actually happening and on a broader scale what the world actually thinks.

So we turned to the world of football shirts - specifically, online retailers, and more specifically, a single online retailer who bribed us with a couple of free shirts (which reminds me - Simon, where are they? )

Jokes apart, the folks at Subside Sports have been kind enough to provide us with a list of the most popular shirts being sold for the upcoming Euro 2008 tournament (related: Euro 2008 kits).

Here’s the top 7:

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Here’s a list of the top scorers in this year’s Champions League (so far), plus their career stats for the Champions League:

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While Manchester United keep closing the gap between themselves and rivals Liverpool in terms of league titles, a debutant playing at Anfield is close to matching (and if opportunities permit, breaking) a record set by a former Manchester United striker.

With 3 games left in the Premier League (2-3 more in Europe), Fernando Torres has 30 goals from 42 appearances, and 22 from 31 appearances in the Premier League. This leaves him just 1 short of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record of 23 goals from 32 appearances, and 6 short of his overall first season (2001/2002) tally of 36 goals from 45 games.

These numbers are phenomenal - RVN’s strike rate of 150 goals in 201 games is legendary and Torres can bring that consistency of 4-5 seasons (at least) to Liverpool, then who knows where they’ll go?

Some numbers:

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In the most expensive transfer in the history of professional sports, Real Madrid have committed to paying 100m for Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

In a move that David Gill described as ‘the textbook definition of too-good-to-refuse’, Manchester United will net £100m upfront and take off around £6m / year from their bloated wage bill. If there was ever a profit to be made, the American owners have made it here.

This is all part of Manchester United’s plan to pay off their debt by 21 December 2012, and along with selling Ronaldo to Real Madrid they are also poised to sell several other players to leading European clubs.

Ronaldo will move to Real Madrid in July after the Euro 2008 championship in the summer, signing a mind-boggling deal that:

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Wayne Rooney has just been elected the ugliest player in the world, at least according to 33% of the 2,500 women polled by www.thepeoplesclub.com. “Shrek” (as the Man Utd striker is affectionately, or not-so-affectionately rather, nicknamed) is however judged to be the perfect mate for girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) Coleen McLoughlin, the latter indeed not being typical smokin’ hot WAG material (à la à la Abbey Clancy or Danielle Lloyd), even though her business skills are largely superior to her much sexier colleagues.

But going back to our “Ugly Top 20″ ranking, Wayne Rooney is indeed topping the list and beating footy champions of the caliber of Ronaldinho and Carlos Tevez. While the footballing skills of the top trio certainly aren’t being questioned, the feminine population that was sampled might have very different things to say about their looks. I guess the “cartoonish face and bunny smile” of the Barcelona playmaker, and the rough facial expression of the Man Utd striker (nicknamed “Apache”) aren’t appreciated at their just value?

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“Soccer is a world made of numbers”. A phrase which would make any mathematician proud, with the eternal claim that you can find mathematics anywhere.

And where better to find numbers than Goal Totals: the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), the famous (and often criticized) organization that chronicles the history of football, has just published its World’s Top Goal Scorer of 2007 ranking.

No, the results are further from probably anything you may expect.

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It’s the end of the year. A popular time for various press publications to make “Best Of 2007″-type rankings.

The Times (UK) did the Best 100 movies of 2007, the New York Times the 10 Best Books of 2007, mCalcio.com the Reuters (RNPS) Best Sports Pictures of 2007 (oh what a shameful plug from my part), and Time Magazine the Top 50 Websites of 2007 (no I don’t think Soccerlens is in it, and neither is mCalcio for that matter ).

Meanwhile newspapers like The Sun, or magazines like FourFourTwo, have been making Top 10 rankings all year long really (see Top 10 EPL Entertainers, Top 100 Footballers, or Richest Players/Club Owners of the EPL, among others).

So, it’s time for French sports newspaper L’Equipe to join the others, and name its All-Star XI Football Players for 2007. Premiership fans will be pleased, because the team is dominated by English-based lads.

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Towards the end of 2006, certain pundits and magazines were proclaiming the birth of Sir Alex Ferguson’s third (for some, fourth) great team stemming from his 20-year tenure at Manchester United.

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Suddenly the Bernabeu is enveloped in a white wave. No, not the apprehensive white of a panolada that must still be haunting Fabio Capello even when he is now in charge of a red-loving England national team, not the white of a flag raised up in surrender, but as both AS and Marca put it, the white of a “white Christmas”. Optimism is booming in Madrid.

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This might be the final round of matches before La Liga 2007-2008 submerges into a two week hibernation but boy, isn’t this weekend a rocking one! It’s El Clasico time mates and read that as war.

El Clasico is the biggest club fixture in the world and is played out between the two most successful teams in Spanish football, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Real are the Castilian side and represent the autocratic and historically oppressive Spanish state while Barca are the symbol of democracy and freedom of the region of Catalonia. So more than 3 points are at stake on Sunday evening when Real travel to the Camp Nou even though neither team would like to lose.

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With Berndt Schuster’s reign at Real Madrid barely ten games old, including pre-season friendlies, and Schuster himself shuffling the pack for rotational purposes, it is not clear which is the strongest possible Madrid eleven. What’s more, this dilemma is heightened by the fact that certain players are performing at a higher level when coming on as substitutes than when starting.

Real also have their strongest squad in recent times – the quality of “reserve” players such as Metzelder comes in stark contrast to the Raúl Bravo, Pavón and Mejia era. Perhaps the lack of a first-team is in fact a strong point of the team – the squad is massively flexible in terms of personnel and formation, and very few players are assured their spots.

What do you think is the optimal Real team, assuming that all players are fit?

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Generally, football fans are loyal to a fault.

But sometimes, we’re fickle, us football fans. We tear our heroes down savagely, without remorse. Or worse, we forget our love for them, allowing our memories to be corrupted by deception staged by the media and sometimes our own clubs.

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Over at Red Rants, K9 talks about Manchester United’s need for a goal poacher.

In my view, Manchester United are not going to find the next Ruud, or Beckham, or Giggs, or Scholes or Keane or Cantona. Those players were/are unique in their ability to win games for United. What Manchester United ‘can’ do is find and groom players who can win games through sheer will - stars who do more than just impress critics with their work-rate or arm-chair pundits with their ‘reputation’.

And Manchester United already have two such players - Rooney and Ronaldo.

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Where were you when Old Trafford worshipped Ruud van Nistelrooy?

It’s a pity that Real Madrid never came up against Manchester United in Europe this season - if only Real had beaten Bayern and then negotiated the impossible against Milan, we would have enjoyed an incredible double leg feature against David Beckham and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

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Ruud van Nistelrooy has had his share of taunting by opposition players for missing penalties.

He rarely gets the chance to avenge it in the same match though.

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Ruud’s recent interview got me thinking - what if Ruud van Nistelrooy had stayed at Manchester United?

How different would things be, and where would Manchester United be right now in the league and other competitions?

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Ruud van Nistelrooy claims Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s treatment of him ‘kicked his soul’ and forced the Dutch striker to leave Old Trafford and join Real Madrid.

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Ruud van Nistelrooy is a fantastic striker. All this guy does is score goals, on whatever stage he plays.

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Real Madrid and Manchester United share a couple of very interesting records in the Champions League.

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Keith writes to Soccerlens about Bayern Munich’s childish behaviour and the various BS myths surrounding Manchester United.

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Breakups are never pretty. No matter how dream-like the early years have been, there is always the inevitable fallout and backbiting that goes on after the relationship is over.

For Manchester United fans who have defended Ruud van Nistelrooy’s abilities as a world-class striker for so many years, to see him leave like this with Ferguson and Ruud pointing fingers at each other is sad. And that’s before you consider that we just lost a player who scored 150 goals in 5 seasons - an average of 30 per season.

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I’m not convinced that Manchester United have the transfer budget to attract another striker to fill Ruud’s boots. Actually, let me rephrase that:

I don’t think there is any striker available on the market (and I include Ibrahimovic, Tevez and Defoe in this list) who can fill in for the man.

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I’ll spare you the rumours and give the ‘confirmed’ news first:

Manchester United are saying: “Manchester United give permission for Ruud van Nistelrooy to travel to Real Madrid for a medical. “However, terms of agreement are yet to be finalised between the two clubs.”

Real Madrid are saying: “Real Madrid announce they have an agreement with Manchester United for the transfer of the player Ruud van Nistelrooy. The player will be contracted with the club for the next three seasons. He will undergo a medical on Friday morning and will be presented in the evening at 7pm at the Palco de Honor at the Santiago Bernabeu.”

What Soccerlens is saying:

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Update: Ruud returns to Manchester United for training.

May 7th seems such a long time away - Ruud van Nistelrooy was thrown out of the team hotel for showing ‘dissent’ at being benched in place of Rossi (read the story here), and scores of Manchester United fans wondering what had gone wrong with Ferguson.

As news emerged after the season ended, Ruud’s interviews to the media placed the blame squarely on Ferguson - he had denied Ruud a chance to be at Keano’s testimonial, he had kicked him out of the team hotel, etc etc. The striker went to train with the Dutch squad hoping that a successful World Cup would turn things in his favour. Lack of form and a 4-3-3 system not suited to his style of play hampered him to the extent that he sat out Holland’s final game (in which van Basten made the mistake of not replacing Kuyt with Ruud) and ended up looking like a washed up striker past his prime.

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Following up on some ‘Bayern and Ruud‘ rumours, I dug up the source and found out something interesting:

Bayern have verbally agreed terms with Ruud van Nistelrooy and have already made a bid to Manchester United for 13 million euros (9 million pounds) - lower than the 14 mil euros (10 mil pounds) bid made by Real Madrid and rejected by United several days ago.

What’s more - this is old news - The news of Bayern’s bid came out a day after Manchester United rejected Madrid’s offer.

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I’m sick of hearing speculation (and sadly, reporting on it) about Ruud van Nistelrooy’s ‘departure’, so I’ll make this quick and simple for all of us.

Ruud van Nistelrooy should have been sold to the highest bidder at the end of last season, and the proceeds should have been used to buy a midfielder (with Smith reverted back to a striker and Rossi promoted to the first team).

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Manchester United had set a 16 million price tag on Ruud van Nistelrooy’s head but their desperation to sell him in order to secure transfer funds along with Ruud’s desire to leave as quickly as possible has meant that in a couple of days, one of Manchester United’s best strikers will be joining Real Madrid for a nothing price.

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Ruud’s off, and according to reports from the past couple of days has been seen in and around Madrid talking to Capello’s men. Manchester United (read Ferguson) will be happy to get rid of the Dutch striker, seeing how the manager and Ruud have been at odds since February.

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It’s official folks.

In a press conference in Durban (on the launch of United’s new home kit, amongst other things), Sir Alex Ferguson announced that Ruud van Nistelrooy had officially told Manchester United that he wanted to leave.

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