Ruud van Nistelrooy – Should he stay or should he go?

By: Mark | January 19th, 2011

By now you’ve all heard that Real Madrid is in need of a striker for the rest of the season and RvN is their main target. The news came out last Friday, just as Hamburg were preparing for their first match of the back-half of the Bundesliga season. Apparently Ruud stormed out of the team hotel saying something about never playing for HSV again if they don’t loan him to Madrid for the rest of the season. Since then he seems to have calmed down, and he did play in HSV’s 1-0 victory over Schalke the next day, scoring the game’s only goal. It’s clear that he still wants to go back to Madrid, but so far Bastian Reinhardt and company are doing their best to keep him in Hamburg until his contract expires in the summer.

So what do you think of the situation? It’s still a hot topic, and I think will be until the end of January until the transfer window closes, or until Madrid manage to sign him or a different striker to fill their needs. There’s a lot of talk like “Hamburg should let him go, he deserves to finish his career at a top club”, or “Real Madrid gave him to Hamburg for free, so Hamburg should return the favour”. In my opinion, Hamburg does not owe anything to Madrid, and the question the HSV management needs to decide is whether van Nistelrooy will continue to make an effort for the club if they keep him.

As far as I’m concerned, HSV took a big risk in signing him from Real Madrid last year, even on a free transfer. The player assured everyone that he was going to be match fit and ready to play a lot of football. Hamburg needed some goalscoring prowess, and they took him, fully aware of the salary he would be paid and unsure of how many games he would be fit to play. The jury is still out on whether he has actually proven his worth at Hamburg though – 11 goals in a year with the team. This hasn’t been enough to put HSV in contention for a title, and even now it will be a fight to qualify for European competition next year. But you can’t deny that van Nistelrooy still has finishing ability. If you get the ball to him in the right place, he can score, and right now it’s beginning to look like the team is starting to find ways to do that. One hard-fought play and a last ditch cross from Guy Demel on Saturday was all that was needed for RvN to head (and shoulder ha ha) the ball home for the win.

So now that RvN is showing some life and the team around him are beginning to pull things together, along comes the promise land of Real Madrid to try to lure him away for their quick-fix solution. Madrid will surely not re-sign him at the end of the year, and if he leaves HSV on loan, what are the chances of him getting a contract extension from Hamburg in the summer? On the other hand, if he stays at Hamburg and continues to play well, there is surely a chance that the club would try to keep him for another year, which could help him maybe make a return to the Dutch national team for Euro 2012.

So that’s where we’re at. In my opinion, it only makes sense for Ruud to leave if he thinks Madrid have a chance at a title and if he doesn’t expect to extend his contract at Hamburg. If he plays very well, another team will surely pick him up, but if Madrid don’t end up giving him regular playing time, his future in the game will be very much in question. If he stays at Hamburg, he will continue to get regular starts because of their current injury situation, he will have a chance to help the team get into European competition for next year, and could possibly play for another year or two if he does well. I’m not going to say it’s a no-brainer decision, because the lure of Real Madrid is huge, but I think honoring his contract at HSV would be a safe decision that could pay off in the end. The worst thing that could happen is if Hamburg keeps him and he decides that he doesn’t care anymore. This would be disastrous for everyone – Hamburg will have missed a chance to try to get some cash for him and would keep fielding a player who might not try to score, and Ruud would sully his reputation somewhat by not giving 100%, further jeopardizing his chances of finding another club next year.

It’s a lot to think about, and only time will tell what both parties ultimately decide. For more analysis, check out this article: http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2011/01/19/2309739/spanish-inquisition-why-real-madrids-attempt-to-sign-ruud

On to other matters: as Eric pointed out in the comments on the last post, Gol TV will be televising Saturday’s HSV match against Eintracht Frankfurt. Finally a chance to see your team in action if you don’t have other ways to watch the German broadcasts. Saturday, 11:30 am EST! (It won’t be live unfortunately). This should be a great game against an evenly matched team – Frankfurt are only 1 point behind Hamburg in the table. If HSV can win this, they will have a good chance of catching up with the top 5 teams (they are only 3 points behind 5th place at the moment). A loss on the other hand will let Frankfurt leap-frog them and send Hamburg back to 8th or lower.

Let’s hope that RvN and the boys can keep their momentum going and pull off a big win on Saturday. Maybe that will help Ruud make up his mind that Hamburg isn’t such a bad place to play afterall!