Motivation Quote by Ruud van Nistelrooy

A striker admitting he’ll abandon the striker’s job is a small rebellion against the clean geometry of football roles. Van Nistelrooy, the archetypal penalty-box finisher, is talking about what happens when the supply line breaks: no service, no chances, no flattering touch-map. Rather than sulk on the shoulder of the last defender and wait for a cross that never comes, he “starts drifting into midfield” to manufacture relevance.

The intent is practical, but the subtext is psychological. For elite forwards, invisibility is its own kind of panic. Goals are currency; without them, a No. 9 can feel like a decorative expense. “I try to be important for the team in other areas” is self-justification and self-preservation at once: a way to keep touching the game, keep confidence warm, keep teammates aware of you. It’s also a quiet critique of the team’s functioning. If the ball never arrives “in the box, where I want it,” the issue isn’t only the striker’s finishing; it’s buildup, width, timing, the collective machinery.

Context matters: van Nistelrooy came up in an era that prized specialist strikers, yet he’s describing a modern coping mechanism - the forward who drops in, links play, triggers presses, and drags defenders out of shape. It reads like an early acknowledgment that the job description was changing. Even the phrasing carries the striker’s ego in a useful form: not “I demand service,” but “I’ll go and look for the ball.” Agency replaces complaint, and in a team sport obsessed with blame, that’s a canny kind of leadership.