Ruud Van Nistelrooy was born on the 1st of July, 1976 in Oss,Netherlands. He was to become one of the finest forwards the world had ever seen. In his earlier days Van Nistelrooy started out as a central defender and was quickly spotted as a talented youngster. Van Nistelrooy's first club was FC Den Bosch, he was at this point converted to a central midfielder. SC Heerenveen, however recognised his potential as a goal scorer and signed him in 1997. But Van Nistelrooy made his first major step to stardom on his 22nd birthday when dutch giants PSV Eindhoven sighned for a then dutch record deal of 4.2 million pounds.Van Nistelrooy repaid the faith by scoring 31 goals in 34 matches in his first season at PSV and being voted Dutch Player of the Year by his fellow professionals. In his second season, he notched up another 29 goals. Manchester United made a bid of 18.5 million pounds in april 2000 but the deal was called off when it was found that Van Nistelrooy had a major injury.
However Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson persevered and almost exactly a year later, 24 year old Van Nistelrooy signed for a then British transfer record of £19 million on 23 April 2001 from PSV. Van Nistelrooy went on to score 150 goals in 219 appearences for United. He also became Man U's top ever champions league goalscorer with 38 goals. However during the second half of the 2005-2006 season Van Nistelrooy was constantly left on the bench despite regularly scoring for Man U when he played. Eventually it became too much for Van Nistelrooy and he asked to transfer to another club. On the 27th of July 2006 Van Nistelrooy was bought by Real Madrid for 15 million pounds.For the Netherlands Van Nistelrooy scored 28 goals in 54 appearences however after a dissapointing World cup Van Nistelrooy was removed from the dutch squad. However, on the bright side Van Nistelrooy has already scored a few goals for Real Madrid and his big playing days may not be over yet.