Raúl (footballer)

Raúl González Blanco (; born 27 June 1977), known mononymously 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 and one of the greatest Spanish players of all time.

Raúl was born in the San Cristóbal de los Ángeles neighborhood of Madrid and he played for their youth academy. In 1994, he made his professional debut with Real Madrid’s C team and was swiftly promoted to the first team.

Raúl spent 16 years of his career playing for Real Madrid and is the club's third all-time top goalscorer with 323 goals. He also has the most appearances for Real Madrid (741). With ''Los Blancos'', Raúl won six La Liga titles, three UEFA Champions League titles (Raúl scored in two Champions League finals), four Supercopa de España titles, one UEFA Super Cup, and two Intercontinental Cups. In 2003, he became captain of the team after Fernando Hierro left the club. Raúl left Madrid in 2010 and signed for Schalke 04, where he won a DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup, before playing for Qatari club Al Sadd and American club New York Cosmos.

Raúl is the sixth-highest goalscorer in the history of La Liga with 228 goals. He also has the third-most appearances in the history of La Liga with 550 appearances. He is the fifth-highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 71 goals and he has the fifth-most appearances in the Champions League. Raúl is one of the 45 players to have made at least 1,000 appearances.

Although Raúl didn’t win any trophies for the Spain national team, he scored a then-record 44 goals in 102 appearances for ''la Roja'' and represented Spain in three FIFA World Cups and two European championships. He became the captain of the national team in 2002 and retired from international football in 2006.

Raúl was named the top international goalscorer in the world by International Federation of Football History & Statistics in 1999. He came second in the 2001 Ballon d'Or rankings and third in the 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year. In 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players and was named in UEFA’s list of the 50 best European players of the 1954–2004 period. He was named in the European Team of the Year by European Sports Media in 1997, 1999, and 2000. Raúl won two Pichichi trophies (1999 and 2001), two top goalscorer awards in the UEFA Champions League (2000 and 2001), five Don Balón Awards (1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002), and one Best Player award at the 1998 Intercontinental Cup. Provided by Wikipedia