World Cup Blog

A new low

By Tim Wigmore ⋅ June 25, 2006 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Ruud van Nistelrooy has endured numerous lows in recent months, but being dropped for Holland’s knockout game with Portugal is surely the worst yet.

What do you when you need a goal to stay in the World Cup? Not, it seems, bring on Ruud van Nistelrooy. Manager Marco van Basten’s decision to both drop the Man Utd striker from the starting line-up and then – more shockingly – bring on the comparatively unproven Vennegoor of Hesselink to seek the equaliser Holland needed was the clearest indication yet Ruud van Nistelrooy’s career is in decline.

Despite van Nistelrooy’s lack of playing time towards the end of the season for Man Utd, he was still an automatic starter for Holland at the start of the World Cup. After disappointing against Serbia & Montenegro, van Nistelrooy responded with an improved performance against Ivory Coast, capped by a typically ruthless finish. But then he was ineffectual against Argentina, subbed for the third consecutive game; Marco van Basten talked of the possibility of the 29-year-old being dropped in the wake up of the clash. Surely just a case of a manager attempting to motivate an under-performing star player?

Well, clearly not. Consigned to the bench for such an important clash, van Nistelrooy could only reflect on a second snub in under six months from a manager. Feeling the wrath of Sir Alex Ferguson is one thing, but being dropped for a World Cup knockout game for purely footballing reasons quite another.

Pundits frequently talk about the ‘one in two’ striker as a benchmark. Well, RVN is better than a ‘one in two man’; his record for Man Utd shows him to be a ‘two in three man’, a simply astonishing return for a striker with 150 goals for his club.

Yet suddenly it is no longer good enough. A little off the pace in the opening three games, van Nistelrooy could still have reasonably expected van Basten, who knows better than anyone the vagaries of life as a centre-forward, would turn to him when it mattered most.

Dutch fans would surely have cringed when Dirk Kuyt missed a relatively tricky one-on-man with 10 minutes left. For it is exactly the kind of opportunity van Nistelrooy has made a living off. Equally, Portugese fans would have stared in joyous disbelief when they saw the late replacement for Philip Cocu; not van Nistelrooy but Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, a man who had scored not once for the national side in the past.

Which all leaves van Nistelrooy stuck in limbo. His record of 150 goals in 219 appearances for Man Utd is unprecedented and testament to his phenomenal consistency and aptitude for goals. But Louis Saha, and now Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, have both been called upon ahead of the Dutch striker recently.

Could it be that a certain something has gone from his game, unnoticeable to the common eye but apparent to Messrs Ferguson and van Basten? Perhaps, though his exploits in the first half of last season do not lend credence to such an argument. He is slightly out of form, low on confidence and probably about to switch clubs; though, on his World Cup showing that club may be nearer in calibre to, say, Tottenham than AC Milan.

Ruud van Nistelrooy is not yet 30, but now faces the second rejuvination act of his career. The first, following his horrendous injury which scuppered his initial transfer to Man Utd, was an over-riding triumph; the second could be too, but not without the back-room support he has not been afforded of late.

Tags: Holland

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