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During a 2006 World Cup qualifying match, he scored in the Dutch’s 4–0 win over bottom-placed Andorra and was yellow-carded for going to Andorra player Antoni Lima and celebrating in front of him, following an incident six minutes before when Van Nistelrooy missed a penalty and Lima laughed at him. He was a part of coach Marco van Basten’s squad for the 2006 World Cup finals, for which he served as the official FIFA/SOS ambassador. He started, and was substituted, in all of the Netherlands’ group stage matches, and scored his lone goal against the Ivory Coast. Van Nistelrooy was dropped to the bench by Van Basten without an explanation for the Netherlands’ second round match, which saw them again eliminated by Portugal. On 15 July 2006, Ferguson confirmed that Van Nistelrooy wanted to leave Manchester United and Real Madrid announced two weeks later that he had signed a three-year contract after being purchased for €14 million. Van Nistelrooy made his debut for the Spanish club in a 1–0 friendly win over Reggina on 4 August 2006. Van Nistelrooy scored a hat-trick in his second league match against Levante and, on 12 November 2006, he scored all four of Real Madrid’s goals in a 4–1 victory over Osasuna. He won the league’s Pichichi award with 25 goals as Real Madrid took home the 2006–07 title, and he also equalled the longest consecutive scoring streak in La Liga history with seven straight matches, tying a league record shared by Hugo Sánchez.
