Leeds United forward Joel Piroe has revealed he often received striker training from Ruud van Nistelrooy at PSV Eindhoven, including how to take penalties.
Voetbal Primeur cover comments from the Leeds United forward today in which he details working under Van Nistelrooy in the Netherlands.
The Dutchman is one of the legends of the Premier League after scoring 150 goals and registering 29 assists in 219 games for Manchester United between 2006 and 2010.
He was one of the most lethal strikers in world football during that period and continued it at Real Madrid, managing 64 goals and 16 assists in 96 games for the Spanish giants. That came after a goal laden spell with PSV that saw him bag 77 goals and 20 assists in 90 games.
He’s now making his way in the managerial game and started out at his former club in the Netherlands, first as a striker coach before working in the youth ranks as a manager and then becoming full-time coach in 2022 for a 50-game spell.
That saw him working with Piroe, who joined PSV’s youth system in 2014 and worked his way up the various ranks to the first team before being sold to Swansea in 2021. He’s not at Leeds but remembers working under Van Nistelrooy to this day.
“At PSV, I often had striker training from Ruud,” he said.
“In that, he trained us well what to do and what to expect. That is perhaps a bit understated with him.
“Habits, what you do as a striker, what you look for from defenders, where you know the spaces fall, techniques in terms of shooting and repeating and repeating that.”
