Roy Makaay - Career

Career

Makaay was the European Golden Boot winner for the 2002–03 season for being the top scorer in Europe. He was first recognized as a talented striker while playing for Vitesse in the mid 1990s and honed his skills at the Spanish First Division with Tenerife and later with Deportivo La Coruña where he scored 22 goals in 36 appearances in 1999–00, his most prolific season. His international caps for the Dutch national team have been limited due to players such as Patrick Kluivert, Dennis Bergkamp and Ruud van Nistelrooy. Makaay did, however, play for his country at Euro 2000 and Euro 2004. In the latter tournament, he scored against Latvia in the first round. He played 31 times for the Dutch U-21 national team which equals a record with Arnold Bruggink.

His first encounter with Bayern Munich came during the UEFA Champions League 2002–03 season when he scored a hat-trick at the Olympiastadion in Munich, in Deportivo's 3–2 win over the Bavarians. The Bayern bosses kept a close eye on him throughout the whole season and finally beat off stiff challenges from Manchester United and Chelsea to get their man. A then club record fee of €18.75 million was paid to Deportivo La Coruña for the Dutch goal machine. He scored 78 Bundesliga and 17 UEFA Champions League goals during his four seasons at Bayern.

On 21 August 2006, Roy Makaay scored Bayern Munich's 3,000th Bundesliga goal. On 31 March 2007, he scored his 100th Bayern Munich goal in the game against FC Schalke 04. It was his 75th Bundesliga goal and 100th competitive goal since joining Bayern Munich in 2003.

On 7 March 2007, Makaay scored the quickest goal in Champions League history, finding the net after just 10.12 seconds to help Bayern overturn a first-leg deficit and put Real Madrid out of the competition.

Makaay returned to the Netherlands for the 2007–08 season, when Feyenoord signed him to a three-year deal worth €5 million in June 2007. Makaay's decision to leave was influenced by Bayern Munich's decision to sign forwards Luca Toni and Miroslav Klose.

Makaay retired at the end of season 2009–10, scoring a hat-trick in his last match against Heerenveen.

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