The day you first came in, you brightened up my life with the new light in the dark;
The day you left, my world was left shattered up in pieces,
When i see you smile, i could also see a smile in me;
When i see you down, i could feel the sorrow for you too…
I’m all but glad that you’re still doing fine, given that you were just another person….
….who have gone through career threatening injury at young age and had to struggle to get back to his game after some 15 months out without a game, and even more difficult for him is that he had to switch his environment from his native soil to the nation who is known to play strong and physical football with quick pace, in the English Premier League, this man must had tremendous courages and confidence to back him up while he started to regain his reputation as the most feared goal-scoring machine back then in year 2001.
But the name of this person has suggested strong enough that he feared nothing, perhaps injury that would asked him to sit out from the pitch again. He showed wonderful beliefs and persistance on climbing his way back to the position he was once in, he went on to record his impressive scoring triumph, he went on to win trophies with his team, he went on to cast shadows on defenders, he went on to haunt many great teams and many top centrebacks in the game, he went on to achieve big things for himself and his team, despite he had met with many challenges and loads of pressures tailing him mercilessly.
This is the man to reckon with, this is the man who has demonstrated to everyone on earth that wherever we fall, we could get back on our feet and remain on the spot that we have fallen at, and then march on. This is the man who’d set the heart of many Man United fan wild, this is the man who often provoked the terminology Rude Awakening, this is the man who’s created the Rude Awakening, for this man is Ruud Van Nistelrooy!
After the career threatening injury, he fight back to become the indispensable player to his new team Man United, and he went on for his tremendous goal scoring spree back then, even recorded impressive 8 games in the row run, his statistics and records speak for him on how marvellous this guy has been, but the best part on this Ruud guy is not the numbers, not the figures, but his character.
After he missed the penalty kick against Arsenal with the loud crack on the cross bar, he was confronted by a gang of ruthless Arsenal players, on the pitch led by the evergreen Martin Keown and Ray Parlour, hassled by the likes of Laurent, but look at the devil, he acted calm, cool, indifferent to all those provocations trashed on him by the gunners. He may have missed the penalty, but he regained his dignity and got the applause from viewer worldwide on his character. The gunners thought they had brought him down to the earth, they thought Ruud had fallen hard and would never stand up again. They thought Ruud’s suffered a huge plunge in confidence and gone were the days of him scoring goals.
It didnt end just there. They were wrong. Very wrong.
A year later, same pulsative match, similar intensity and tensions, same teams, Man United and Arsenal, same scenarios, a penalty given to the Red Devils, taker is still Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Keeper is still Jens Lehmann, the same focus from the ruthless Arsenal Players were thrown on Ruud, but look, this time, He bounced back, he scored, calmly slotted the ball to the right hand side and sent the keeper to his wrong way(he usually strucked the ball to the left hand side sky high but this time his intelligent made him the winner), he run to the fans, shattered to the ground, shouting out aloud, as if the pressure and ghost that been haunting him for a year had finally been defeated and released, fans felt his joy, fans felt how difficult it’d been for him for the past year, but we were all feeling great for him at that moment, some even shed tears together with him, like me! his scream, his passions, his reliefs, i could still recall the very vivid moment.
Ruud’s heroic doesnt stop here. After going through a dip in form, he was discarded by the red devils to Real Madrid. Many pundits thought Ruud had faded away and would play second fiddle role at Real, but He against proved the world wrong by going on to become a regular starter for the team who’d Raul, Robinho, Ronaldo, and successfully break his way into the pecking order, well thats not all, his old habit of scoring goal is still very much the same, he went on to score more breath taking goals, the one against valencia that cracked everyone’s heart, the one he scored from a position of ‘no angle’ etc, and even stood a strong fight to win the top scorer award in his first La Liga season.
His story on the pitch has spoken out that no matter how hard life hit us, with a stern heart, strong belief and determination, we would certainly find our way back into where it hit us hard. Today, is the Ruud Redemption Day, a day to pay tribute for this wonderful beast in the box, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, you ‘re the man!
