Football icons: Raúl
Raúl González Blanco, known to most within football as Raúl, is considered one of the most important players in the history of Real Madrid.
He is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish players of all time and also one of the best forwards ever.
Key events in his career
He started his career in the academy of the Atlético Madrid before later moving to Real Madrid's youth academy and played at its various levels. He signed professional terms in 1994.
He spent 16 years of his career playing for Real Madrid and is the club's second 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.
Throughout his time in Madrid, he would have played with some of their greatest ever players. This includes the likes of Zidane, Roberto Carlos, David Beckham, Figo and so many more. In reality, you could argue during these era's Madrid should have won have more major trophies.
In 2003, he was appointed captain of the team 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. He would finish his incredible career playing in Qatar.
More facts about the player
Raúl is the fifth-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 fourth-highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 71 goals and has played the fifth-most games and is one of only 18 players to have played over 1,000 matches in a career.
His final totals at club level read 404 goals across 942 matches. His last goal game for New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League.
International career
Raúl began his Spain career at the youth level and represented the nation at the 1995 FIFA U-20 World Cup, scoring three goals from five matches. He was also part of the under-21 side that reached the final of the 1996 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, and even scored his side's equaliser in the final, although he later missed his penalty in the resulting shoot-out.
With the senior team, Raúl went on for many years to score a then national record 44 goals in 102 caps for Spain. However, David Villa later equalled Raúl's record in 2010 and surpassed it on 25 March 2011 in a UEFA Euro 2012 qualifier. Of his 44 international goals, Raúl scored 32 goals in competitive matches, six of which were in the finals of major tournaments and 12 from friendly matches.
The big regret of this wonderful career will be that never won a major trophy with Spain. He was last chosen for the national team on 6 September, in a 3–2 defeat against Northern Ireland in Belfast. Less than two years after this, Spain won 2008 and built something of a dynasty in international football.
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Some further interesting stories and reports about this icon
Back in 2000, he put in one of his best ever performances for Real Madrid in a Champions League game against Manchester United. A BBC report from the time reads:
The Spaniards marched into the semi-final at the expense of the defending champions, thanks to two wonderful strikes from Raul Gonzalez.
In 2019, the Real Madrid hero was put in charge of Castilla, Real's reserve team. At the time of the announcement, a news story said:
Raul will join the cohort of many former Los Blancos players to coach Real Madrid reserves. He, of course, will be hoping that his career will take the same route as Zinedine Zidane's one.
