Raul’s best moments in a Real Madrid Jersey
One of the most iconic figures in the Real Madrid’s history is Raul Gonzalez. He has been arguably the greatest player to ever play for the team. Raul has now parted ways with the Spanish club and moved on to join Schalke in Germany. He has however spent sixteen phenomenal years with Madrid. Here is a look at some of his greatest moments with the team.
After waiting thirty two years, Real Madrid finally managed to win the Champions League in 1998. They beat Juventus one nil in the final game. Raul played an instrumental role in that match. He played ninety minutes, which just proved how vital he was to the team. This was also the first European trophy that Raul had won.
In 2000 a Champions League match took place between, Real Madrid and Manchester United. In the second leg of that game which took place in Old Trafford, Raul managed to score two sublime goals in the span of three minutes; this put Madrid in the pole position in the game, which they eventually went on to win.
After three years of not winning the La Liga title, Raul captained the Real Madrid side that went on to end the dry spell by lifting the La Liga trophy in 2007. He scored twenty three goals that season and Real Madrid managed to take home the silverware. Some people might say three years is not a long time for a team to go without winning a trophy but for Real Madrid three years seem to be an eternity.
2002 was the year when Real Madrid last won a Champions League trophy. They did so by beating Bayer Leverkusen by a score line of two goals to one. He scored the first goal for Madrid that night while the second was scored by Zinedine Zidane. Raul on that night proved to everyone that he was one of the best strikers to ever walk the face of the earth.
Raul was already the highest goal scorer in the history of the Champions League when he decided to take that a step further. In a Champions League clash with Zenit St Petersburg, Raul scored twice and went on to beat Filippo Inzaghi’s record of being the all time highest goal scorer in all UEFA Club Competitions.
In 2009 Raul did the unthinkable. He set his name down in Madrid’s history books as being the highest goal scorer in the club’s history. He did so by eclipsing Alfredo Di Stefano’s goal scoring record at the club, a record that everyone other than Raul thought was unbeatable. He also managed to join the exclusive 500+ club at Madrid by making more than five hundred appearances with the club.
All of the above aside, the moment that made Raul an overnight legend at the Bernabeu, was in a match with arch rivals, Barcelona. After scoring in the El Clasico, Raul made his way to Barca fans, lifted up his index finger and held it in front of his lips, in doing so he had managed to silence the millions of Barcelona fans all over the world, win the hearts of all the Madrid fans and pledge his alliance to Real Madrid forever.
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