Hamburg signs “Van the Man“ from Real Madrid – Answering injury problems

Immediately after Hamburg’s loss against Borussia Dortmund, the club officials announced the transfer of dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who played for the Spanish club Real Madrid. Van Nistelrooy singed a contract till june 2011.

Hamburg won the competition of signing Van Nistelrooy against Galatasaray Istanbul and several Premier-League teams, who would pay much more wage than the German club. Van Nistelrooy said that Hamburg was his first choice because of the club perspectives and his personal ambitions to play for a top team. The Premier-League teams like West Ham United had to deal with relegation this season.

With signing Van Nistelrooy Hamburg hopefully solves its injury problems, especially its striker problems. Paolo Guerrero is seriously injured with a cruciate ligament rupture; Markus Berg and Tunay Torun are talented but they aren’t a contributory factor for winning the title. Mladen Petric is currently the only player, who’s the condition to play at top level.

Because of that Hamburg needed to sign a striker to stay in touch with the top teams like Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Dortmund and Schalke.

 My Opinion:

It is a good move to sign a 33-year old striker, who only was a member of the reserve squad in the past months? – I think I would negate this for nearly every striker in this situation, but not for “Van the Man”……. I think his variety, his statistics and his character suggest that Hamburg made a good deal in signing him. He played very successful for all of his teams and was always appreciated by his teammates and fans.

Van Nistelrooy is a type of player Hamburg desperately needed. Hamburg need a player who scores goals inside the penalty box and this ability made Van Nistelrooy so famous in Manchester and all across Europe. The interaction with Eljero Elia, Piotr Trochowski and Malden Petric will be successful, if…….

Van Nistelrooy overcomes the aftermath of his knee injury form November 2008. This fact is maybe the dark horse of the deal – Will he be still in the right condition?? I HOPE SO!