Raúl (footballer)

Raúl González Blanco (born 27 June 1977), known as Raúl, is a Spanish football manager and former player who played as a forward.

He is the current manager of Real Madrid Castilla, the reserve team of La Liga club Real Madrid.

Raúl is regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation.

Raúl was born in the San Cristóbal de los Ángeles neighborhood of Madrid where he played for the local youth team before moving to the Atlético Madrid youth team.

He later moved to Real Madrid's youth academy and played at various youth levels.

While with the Real youth set-up, Raúl won the Dallas Cup in 1993 and 1994.

In 1994, he signed his first professional contract with the fourth division team Real Madrid C, and then was swiftly promoted to the first team.

He spent 16 years of his career playing for Real Madrid and is the club's third all-time top goalscorer with 323 goals and has the most appearances in the history of the club, with 741.

With Los Blancos, Raúl won six La Liga titles, three UEFA Champions League titles, scoring in two finals, four Supercopa de España titles, one UEFA Super Cup and two Intercontinental Cups.

He first started his professional career in the 1994–95 season with Real Madrid C.

He scored 16 goals in just nine games (including five in one match against CD Corralejo) and was swiftly promoted to the first team by coach Jorge Valdano, replacing Emilio Butragueño in a symbolic "passing of the crown."

He became the youngest player – 17 years and 124 days – ever to play for the senior side, though the record was broken by Alberto Rivera later that same season.

On 29 October 1994, in an away game against Real Zaragoza at La Romareda, he created a goal for strike partner Iván Zamorano, heralding the demise of Butragueño in the process.

The next week, Raúl scored his first goal in his second senior game on a home debut against Madrid rivals and former youth club Atlético Madrid in a bitter derby match.

Fully establishing himself as a fixture in the first team, Raúl registered a total of nine goals in 28 appearances to help Real Madrid win the 1994–95 league championship in his first season.

With Real Madrid, he won several honours at the club, 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 hospitalised).

He was part of the European Team of the Year of European Sports Media in 1997, 1999 and 2000.

During the period from 1998 to 2002, Raúl and Real Madrid also won three UEFA Champions League trophies in 1998, 2000, and 2002.

For most of this time, Raúl struck up a prolific scoring partnership with Fernando Morientes and later Ronaldo.

Raúl was named the top international goalscorer in the world by International Federation of Football History & Statistics in 1999, and ranked second in the 2001 Ballon d'Or and third in the 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year.

Raúl won two Pichichi trophies (1999 and 2001), the top goalscorer award of the UEFA Champions League (2000 and 2001), five Don Balón Awards (1997, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002) and one Best Player Award at the Intercontinental Cup in 1998.

Raúl's career began at his local team CD 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 in La Fábrica.

The following season, he was promoted to the Juvenil C team and subsequently went on to play for their Juvenil B and Juvenil A team.

During a La Liga game against fierce rivals Barcelona at the Nou Camp in October 1999, Raúl silenced the hostile home crowd of almost 100,000 fans when he scored and then memorably celebrated his goal by putting a finger to his lips as though to tell them to be quiet.

He was also the first player to score in two Champions League finals, since the competition was renamed, scoring in the finals of both 2000 against Valencia in the Stade de France, Saint-Denis, and 2002 against Bayer Leverkusen at Hampden Park, Glasgow.

Raúl captained the side from 2002 to his international retirement in 2006.

Despite appearing in two finals, in 2002 (in which he scored) and 2004, Raúl never lifted the Copa del Rey.

In 2003, he was appointed captain of the team, after Fernando Hierro's departure from the club and retained the position until he left the club in 2010.

He then signed for Schalke 04, where he won a DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup, before playing for Qatari club Al Sadd and New York Cosmos.

Raúl is the sixth-highest goalscorer in the history of La Liga with 228 goals.

He is also the highest Spanish scorer in European leagues, with 256 goals, scoring 228 goals in La Liga and 28 goals in the Bundesliga.

He also has the third-most appearances in the history of La Liga, 550 matches.

He is the fifth highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 71 goals, and has played the fifth most games.

He has also played 1,000 matches in his career, one of only 45 players to have done so.

Although he did not win any major competitions while playing for the Spain national team, he scored a then-record 44 goals in 102 appearances for la Roja, appearing in three FIFA World Cups and two European championships.

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.

In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players, and was included in the UEFA list of the 50-best European players of the 1954–2004 period.

He became the first player to score 50 Champions League goals when he scored in a 2–1 group stage win over Olympiacos on 28 September 2005, and was also the first to make 100 appearances in the competition.