A tribute to Ruud van Nistelrooy and the playground art of goalhanging

Ruud van Nistelrooy was often called a one-trick pony during his time at Manchester United, but to write off his goal poaching as simple would be to misunderstand his brilliance.

Goalhangers. You’ll find one in every game of Wembley knockouts, standing as close as they can to goal, waiting for a loose ball they can scuff or toe-poke past the goalkeeper to advance to the next round.

That kid is universally loathed: the more skillful and dedicated players have to do all the running and chasing, only to see the ball put away by some lazy chancer – or “scavving it”, as we called it at my school in the north-west of England.

I’m not sure whether it’s out of residual hatred from the playground games where the offside rule doesn’t apply, or simply because they are prone to contributing nothing until the ball finds its way into the box, but we seem not to appreciate these players in the professional game.

We tend not to call them goalhangers at that level, of course; upon graduating from the academy they are officially upgraded to ‘poacher’, and then once they have 50 or so goals under their belts they get promoted again to ‘out-and-out striker’ status.

Think Gary Lineker. Think Miroslav Klose. Think Javier Hernandez. Think Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Watching back through footage of Van Nistelrooy’s performances leaves you questioning whether he even knew there was another 80 yards or so available for him to play in.

For many of his goals he plays absolutely no part in the build-up and isn’t even visible in shot until the very last second, when he pounces with a simple finish.

If he had been playing 10 years later, Van Nistelrooy would be the poster boy for xG fanatics. The way he dealt with through balls, for instance, is