Football Player's Biography 7: Raúl González

Full name	Raúl González Blanco
Date of birth	27 June 1977 (1977-06-27) (age 33)
Place of birth	Madrid, Spain
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Playing position	Striker

Raúl González Blanco (born 27 June 1977 in Madrid, Spain), known simply as Raúl is a Spanish footballer who plays as a striker. He currently plays for German club Schalke 04, in the Bundesliga. Raúl had spent most of his career playing for Spanish club Real Madrid up until 2010 and is the club's all-time top goalscorer. Raúl is a three-time winner of the UEFA Champions League and has long been the competition's all-time leading goal scorer. He left Real Madrid on 25 July 2010, having scored 323 goals in 741 appearances.

Club career

Youth clubs

Raúl career began at his local team C.D. San Cristóbal de los Ángeles playing for their Alevín team and the Infantil the next season. He signed with Atlético Madrid's Infantil team and won a national title with the Cadete team the following season. Following Atlético's then-president Jesús Gil decision to close their youth academy as a cost-saving measure, Raúl moved on to Real Madrid's Cadete team. The following season, he was promoted to the Juvenil C team and subsequently went on to play for their Juvenil B, Juvenil A and Junior teams.

Real Madrid

Started his professional career in the 1994–95 season with Real Madrid C, but, having rattled in 16 goals in just 7 games, Raúl was swiftly promoted to the first team by coach Jorge Valdano, replacing the legendary figure of Emilio Butragueno in a highly symbolic "passing of the crown". He became the youngest player (seventeen years and four months) ever to play for the senior side, and turned in an outstanding performance on his debut in an away game against Zaragoza in La Romareda, creating a goal for strike partner Ivan Zamorano and impressing observers with all-round play of startling precocity, and heralding the demise of Butragueno in the process. The very next week, Raúl scored in what was only his second senior game (and Estadio Bernabeu debut) against bitter derby rivals Atlético Madrid. Duly establishing himself as a fixture in the first team, Raúl registered a total of nine goals in 28 appearances (many of which were off the bench as the club eased the youngster into senior football) to help Real Madrid win the 1994–95 league championship in his first season.
Over the next eight seasons, Raúl developed into perhaps the leading striker in all of European and world football. With Real Madrid, he won several honours, including further La Liga titles in 1996–97 (scoring 21 La Liga goals), 2000–01 (scoring 24 La Liga goals), and 2002–03 (scoring 16 La Liga goals in a campaign truncated by a bout of appendicitis for which Raúl was hospitalized). During the period 1998–2002, Raúl and Real Madrid also won three Champions League trophies (1998, 2000 and 2002). For most of this time, Raúl struck up a prolific scoring partnership with Fernando Morientes (and later, Ronaldo). Raúl took over the captaincy of Real Madrid when Fernando Hierro was transferred in 2003, a responsibility he held until leaving the club in 2010. Unusually for such a successful and long-serving player, and despite appearing in two finals, 2002 (in which he scored) and 2004, Raúl never lifted the Copa del Rey (Spanish Cup).
He became the first player to score fifty Champions League goals when he netted in a 2–1 group stage win over Olympiacos on 28 September 2005, and continues to be the all-time leader in appearances (128).He was also the first player to score in two Champions League finals, netting in the finals of both 2000 against Valencia in Paris, and 2002 against Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow. Samuel Eto'o later equalled this feat, scoring in the 2006 final against Arsenal and in 2009 against Manchester United
Raúl holds the distinction of having never received a red card throughout his 17 years at the professional level.^[9] On 11 November 2008, Raúl scored his 300th goal for Real Madrid with a hat-trick against Real Unión, with Real winning the game 4–3 but being eliminated on away goals after drawing 6–6 on aggregate.^[10] In total, Raúl scored 323 goals for Real Madrid, breaking the long-standing club record of Alfredo di Stéfano with a volleyed goal against Sporting Gijon on 15 February 2009. He is also the top active La Liga goalscorer with 228 goals in La Liga matches and is presently third on the all-time list, which is headed by Telmo Zarra with 252 goals.Raúl holds the record of all-time top La Liga scorer for Real Madrid with 228, a record previously held by Alfredo di Stéfano.
Raúl and fellow long-serving teammate Iker Casillas were both awarded a 'contract for life' in 2008 – the terms of which stipulate that it will be renewed annually for as long as they play 30 games per season. On 23 September 2009, Raúl equalled former veteran and legend Manolo Sanchís' league appearance record for Real Madrid,and is second in La Liga behind Andoni Zubizarreta who played 622 games.
The club confirmed on 25 July 2010 that Raúl was leaving the club, a day after teammate Guti confirmed he too was leaving after 15 years.
With powerful symbolism, Raúl's very last touch of the ball as a Real Madrid player was to score a crucial goal, and he did so whilst labouring with an injury that would keep him out of action for the rest of that season. The goal was an equalizer scored against Zaragoza in La Romareda (the stadium where he made his Real Madrid debut back in 1994) and was scored after Raúl (himself only on the pitch as a substitute for Rafael Van der Vaart) had signalled that he could not physically continue. Before the substitution could be made, Real Madrid launched a counter-attack to try to equalize. Though reduced to a slow hobble, Raúl shuffled into the box and was able to poke in an equalizer from a Cristiano Ronaldo cross – a crucial goal with what proved to be his very last touch of a ball as a Real Madrid player.
Having spent the rest of the season recovering from that injury, the club confirmed on 25 July 2010 that Raúl would be leaving the club, a day after teammate Guti confirmed he too was leaving after 15 years. Although new coach Jose Mourinho wanted Raúl to continue, Raúl did not want to spend another season as third or fourth choice striker.

Schalke 04

Raúl signed a two-year contract with FC Schalke 04 on 28 July 2010, ending speculation about his future. Schalke coach Felix Magath hailed the signing as "Great news for Schalke" and "we have succeeded in signing such an exceptional footballer."He scored his first goal for the club in his first match on 1 August 2010 with a brace in a 3–1 victory over Bayern Munich in an unofficial friendly match cup competition LIGA total! Cup 2010. Not intermittent one week later, he made his official match debut in 2010 DFL-Supercup on 7 August 2010 against Bayern Munich again, but this time he got the defeat without scoring a goal in a 2-0 match. Raul also made his official Bundesliga debut on 21 August 2010, in a 2–1 defeat against Hamburg.and scored his first goal for Schalke in Bundesliga against Mönchengladbach on 25 September 2010 in a 2–2 draw.After a quiet start he has rediscovered his goalscoring form in the Bundesliga with a brace against St. Pauli on 5 November 2010 in a 3–0 win, and on 20 November 2010 he scored his first hat-trick for the club in a 4–0 win over Werder Bremen. On 18 December 2010 he scored his second hat-trick for Schalke in a 3–0 win against Köln.
In European play, Raul has since become the highest goal scorer in all UEFA competitions with 71 goals, ahead of AC Milan veteran Filippo Inzaghi with 70 goals. He scored 69 goals in UEFA Champions League (66 goals with the Castilian and 3 others with Schalke 04) and addition his two goals with Madrid, one goal in 2000 UEFA Super Cup and the other one in 1998 Intercontinental Cup (also commonly referred as known as EUSA Cup). On 22 October 2010, the former Spanish international scored twice against Hapoel Tel Aviv in a 3–1 win, which tied him with German legend Gerd Müller for the most number of European goals. Raúl duly broke this record on 15 February 2011 on his return to Spain, with a crucial away goal in the last 16 tie against Valencia at the Mestalla Stadium in a 1–1 draw. Raúl scored another crucial goal on 2nd March of 2011 against Bayern Munich in a 0-1 win in the DFB-Pokal. Schalke 04 will meet 2. Fußball-Bundesliga team MSV Duisburg in the Cup final.

International career

Raúl began his rise in the international scene at youth level and represented Spain at the 1995 FIFA World Youth Championship, scoring two goals. In total, Rául scored 20 goals at the various youth levels for Spain. With the senior team, Raúl went on for many years to score a national record 44 goals in 102 caps for Spain though David Villa drew level with Raúl's tally in 2010, and will surely surpass it in the run-up to Euro 2012.
Of his 44 international goals, Raúl scored 25 goals in competitive games, 6 of which were in the finals of major tournaments. In a Euro 2000 qualifier, on 27 March 1999, Raúl scored four goals, one of only two international hat-tricks, during Spain's 9–0 rout of Austria. He scored another international hat-trick four days later, against San Marino during the same qualifying tournament.
Raúl is the most-capped outfield player for Spain, with 102 appearances.
Raúl took over the team captaincy following the retirement of Fernando Hierro in 2002 and skippered the national side for four years.
Raúl was unfortunate that his peak did not coincide with that of other players, such as Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Fernando Torres and other members of Spain's current "Golden Generation", as this undermined his prospects of adding silverware with the national team to his bulging trpohy cabinet at club level. For many years, a succession of Spanish coaches (Jose Camacho, Inaki Saez and Luis Aragones) asked Raul to "carry the burden" of the national team virtually alone.
Curiously, Raúl's international career would begin and end with unjustified omissions from Spanish squads for European Championships tournaments. Surprisingly, in spite of an astonishing first two seasons of senior football, Raúl was not chosen by then then-coach and ultra-conservative Javier Clemente (who would pick two centre-backs to play in central midfield in addition to five defenders) for Euro 1996 in England. Instead, Raúl had to wait until October 1996 to earn his first senior cap against the Czech Republic, before opening his international goal tally with a strike on his second appearance against Yugoslavia. Raúl went on to participate in three World Cups from 1998 to 2006, along with Euro 2000 and Euro 2004, scoring at least one goal in each of the three World Cup competitions, but – with the exception of World Cup 2002, where Raúl rattled in 3 goals in the group phase before injuring himself against the Republic of Ireland in Spain's fourth game and missing the remainder of the tournament – never fully reproducing his club form in the finals of a major tournament. The most potent symbol of Rául's international career remains his last-minute penalty miss against France in the quarter-final of Euro 2000 which, if scored, would have forced extra time.
Raúl has not been chosen for the national team since September 2006, following a shock 3–2 defeat against Northern Ireland in Belfast (a game in which Raúl hit the post late on). In addition, and in spite of the fact that he scored 23 goals for his club in 2007–08, Raúl was not selected for the UEFA Euro 2008 final tournament (which Spain eventually won) as Luis Aragonés preferred Fernando Torres and David Villa as his first choice strike force alongside a host of lesser names as back-up (Ruben De La Red, Dani Guiza, Sergio Garcia etc). Raúl's clubmate and goalkeeper Iker Casillas succeeded him as captain and also lifted the FIFA World Cup in 2010, which Spain also won.
One theory behind Aragonés decision to drop Raúl was team unity. Sid Lowe of the British newspaper the Guardian wrote in 2004 that Raúl had tried to undermine Michael Owen in the Real Madrid squad. The decision to drop Raúl was perhaps vindicated by Spain not only winning UEFA Euro 2008 but also the FIFA World Cup 2010, unparalleled in Spanish footballing history.
Ultimately, the decision to drop Raúl was perhaps vindicated by Spain not only winning UEFA Euro 2008 but also the FIFA World Cup 2010, unparalleled in Spanish footballing history. However, much like England in 1966 (when no place could be found for Jimmy Greaves in the World Cup final), there is a certain nagging guilt prevalent in Spanish footballing culture that perhaps their greatest-ever player should be absent for the national team's two major triumphs.
For many years, there were whispers that Raúl exercised too much power behind the scenes at both club and international level. In reality, there has always been something of a divide between the Spanish players and the foreign players within the Real Madrid dressing room, both factions mistrustful of the other. Sid Lowe of the British newspaper The Guardian wrote in 2004 that Raúl had tried to undermine Michael Owen during his period with Real Madrid, whilst Nicolas Anelka and Cicinho were also critical of Raúl's influence. However, all of Raúl's other teammates have always spoken of their high regard for him, as both player and man. The utter dignity and professionalism Raúl has displayed when dropped by first Spain and then Real Madrid also undermine the theory that Raúl as a back-stage plotter. Indeed, two months before Euro 2008, when the clamour for Raúl's return to the Spain squad was at a crescendo, Rául agreed to publicly meet with Luis Aragones to scotch rumours of a fall-out between the two and to plead for the squad to be allowed to get along with their preparations in peace.

Personal life

For many years, Raúl's goal celebration has consisted of kissing his wedding ring as an acknowledgment to his wife Mamen Sanz whom he married in 1999 and with whom he has four sons and a daughter: Jorge, named after Jorge Valdano, Hugo after Hugo Sánchez, twins Héctor and Mateo named after Héctor Rial and Lothar Matthäusand María. He enjoys reading, especially the books of Arturo Pérez Reverte, and listening to Spanish music.^{[citation needed]}