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IN a blazing south California sun, Ruud van Nistelrooy is leading training at UCLA’s Wallis Annenberg Stadium.
Manchester United will go down 2-1 to Arsenal at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium the following day but on this heat-drenched afternoon the new assistant manager is conducting quickfire attack-v-defence sessions of less than two minutes each on a pitch of shortened, squeezed dimensions designed to enhance touch and speed of play.
Sitting in shaded bleachers observing the Dutchman are Dan Ashworth, United’s sporting director, his technical director, Jason Wilcox, and Sir Dave Brailsford, who is the executive oversight for Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the minority shareholder and Ineos owner in charge of football operations.
All witness what the Guardian has been informed: that Van Nistelrooy has an aura, is vocal, and that the plunderer of 150 goals in 219 United appearances appears as adept at coaching defenders as finishers and does not want to be considered solely a forwards’ guru.
In five years as a United player from his debut on August 12 2001, when he scored in the 2-1 Charity Shield defeat by Liverpool, Van Nistelrooy menaced defences, as his end ratio of a goal every 1.46 games shows.
Now, back at the club where he won a Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup, the 48-year-old is a key part of the Ratcliffe revolution, despite being an Erik ten Hag-led recruit.
Van Nistelrooy was cool-eyed when faced with domestic and Champions League backlines — notably at Real Madrid as well as United, for whom his 35 Champions League goals remain a club record — and a similar response comes when he is asked whether, as a former PSV manager, joining Steve McClaren, René Hake and Andreas Georgson to make a quartet of former No 1s, could cause Ten Hag discomfort.
“A good thing, and no issue in my eyes,” Van Nistelrooy responds.
Tom Heaton, who is in a second United spell, signed as a trainee goalkeeper in 2002 when Van Nistelrooy was in his pomp.
He says: “Me and Ruud spent a bit of time together then — I was always his go-to keeper for shooting. He’s been brilliant, his level of detail superb. You’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s a United legend coming in so is just here [as a face]. But his level of detail, and I’ve been in a couple of meetings, is outstanding.”
In his playing days, Heaton never saw Van Nistelrooy as a future No 1. “Not really – we had that conversation a couple of days ago,” says the 38-year-old. “He sort of said he could never really see himself managing, coaching.
But in his final year playing, for Málaga [in 2011-12], he was with [Manuel] Pellegrini, and he said that Pellegrini saw, not that his legs had gone but that he was sort of done before he saw it. — The Guardian.
Online Reporter