As a schoolteacher, Van Nistelrooy has maintained his obsession with perfection.
The Dutchman became a teacher at PSV’s academy and then retired as a player at Málaga in 2012 and was promoted to first-team coach in 2022.
When he resigned in 2023, then won the Dutch Cup and finished second in the Eredivisie in his worst season in charge, he was struggling to do business.
Instead, he took a background told to him by other coaches around the world at clubs such as Spanish giants Real Madrid and Argentine powerhouses Boca Juveniles and River Plate.
“He’s not a proud man in that sense, he’s not arrogant. He wanted to convey his own ideas to those of others,” Marcel van der Kraan, a sports essayist for the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, told BBC Game.
“On his dream football trip, he attended all the important games. He spoke with Martín Demichelis, the coach of River Plate, for hours and hours about how to train.
“He is also going to enjoy the football culture. He told me that he walked through Los Angeles Boca in Buenos Aires and saw ‘The Eternity of Maradona’ painted on the walls in tribute to the Argentine legend, who died in 2020. He said: “You want to win the tradition of a section”.
“At Man Utd, it’s probably more vital than any other club in England to know the culture of the club, of the area, and Ruud knows that.”
