Article in the Sunday Times:
"I've scored 14 now in 17, no, 18 games," he says, updating his sums after Madrid's 2-2 draw with Lyon. These, of course, represent his first 14 goals for Madrid following a summer transfer from United. By any standards, it is prolific. By Van Nistelrooy's standards, it counts as just better than par. But he has been surprised by the impact he has made in Spanish football. "It' s a great start," he says. "I didn't expect it, coming to a club that hasn't won anything in three years, with new players, a new coach. It's not easy."
Nor has Van Nistelrooy's 30th year — he reached the milestone in July — been his easiest. The background to his transfer to Real Madrid from United spread doubts about his status among the game's most effective centre-forwards. Between April and June, two very good managers concluded that he was expendable. He was dropped by Sir Alex Ferguson, and at the World Cup was left out of the starting XI by Marco van Basten, head coach of Holland. Both decisions damaged the relationship between player and manager. Badly. From spring to summer, the principal storylines around his career centred on Ruud's Feuds.
Had he come to Madrid with a sense of something to prove? "Of course," he answers, "after what happened at United and after the World Cup. And having to prove myself in a new club, in a new country and in new surroundings. You start all over again. But the experience I gained in England was massive, and I used that here to settle in."
His quick command of Spanish made an immediate impression and Van Nistelrooy is happy to have an old friend to assist with other relocation challenges. David Beckham, says Van Nistelrooy, "really helped me settle in" although he'd have liked Beckham's companionship to have extended beyond advice on where to buy furniture or baby clothes — the Van Nistelrooys celebrated the arrival of a daughter in September — and to the creation of goals.
It hardly needs mentioning how profitable the Beckham-Van Nistelrooy axis, the crosser par excellence and the poacher supreme, used to be in United's colours: Van Nistelrooy's most prolific seasons for United were when they played together. "It just needs a look from him, and he puts the ball in just the right place," Van Nistelrooy announced on joining Madrid.
Suggesting to Van Nistelrooy that his statistics might look even smarter if Beckham had been more often arrowing in centres from the right, he responds with a wide grin: "That could be the case, yes. Unfortunately, he's not there right now, so I'm missing him. When we play in the same team, it's wonderful.
"One player doesn't change a whole team but he's a player who always looks forward, always looks for other people, and his crossing of the ball is so much his speciality."