Ruud van Nistelrooij remembers exactly the moment he decided to hang up his football boots. This is what the 47-year-old former striker tells us Cor Potcast. Van Nistelrooy was no longer physically able to capitalize on his characteristic running action and immediately knew after a hard tackle that it was better to stop. “Then I sat there in the heat and said to myself: 'Ruud, it's done.'”

Van Nistelrooij played his last season as a professional footballer for Málaga. The seventy-time international of the Dutch national team was confronted with his age in the home game against FC Barcelona. “If the ball was on the side, I often started a running action that cut between the central defenders,” Van Nistelrooij begins in the podcast.

Javier Mascherano and Éric Abidal played in the center of Barcelona's defense in the match in question. “They were not slow, but I knew that if I did that and they still had to turn, it would be over,” continues the currently clubless trainer. “So I take the ball and tap it to the side. Suddenly I'm tackled, boy,” he laughs.

“I couldn't even shoot on target anymore, I hadn't even taken a shot yet. My leg still had to go back to shoot. Then I sat there in the heat and said to myself: 'Ruud, it's done.' I already knew. I thought: this is no longer possible.” Van Nistelrooij indeed ended his career after the 2011/12 season, but had still given himself 'a joker'.

“I had decided to rewatch the moment. If it looked as ugly as it felt, then it was clear to me. So I went to the video analyst with my cup of coffee, and I immediately walked away with that coffee,” laughs Van Nistelrooij. “It looked scary, boy. It was like slow motion.”

The former striker says that he went straight to Manuel Pellegrini with his coffee, who was in charge of Málaga at the time. “I said I would quit in May. One hundred percent sure. It couldn't be clearer.”

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