Van Nistelrooy move all about playing time

Ruud van Nistelrooy says he is only moving to Bundesliga club Hamburg from Real Madrid to play more often. The 33-year-old Dutch striker agreed an 18-month contract to join the German club after falling down the pecking order at the Bernabeu. Van Nistelrooy had been linked with a host of clubs recently as he looked to secure more playing time, with the English Premier League teams West Ham and Tottenham just two of the clubs that were interested in the former Manchester United striker.

He told Marca that leaving had been a "painful" decision. He ran a lap of honour before Real's Primera Liga match against Malaga last night. Van Nistelrooy says he has "written a nice page in the history of Madrid" and that his biggest disappointment was not winning the Champions League. He scored 60 goals in 89 appearances since arriving from United in 2006. With the arrival of attacking stars Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema, he was relegated to the bench this season and has scored only one goal from four games.

Meanwhile, Real's title rivals Barcelona beat Valladolid 3-0 on Saturday night to finish the first half of the Primera Liga season unbeaten. Xavi and Daniel Alves scored for the defending champions in the first half and Lionel Messi added the third as Barcelona comfortably won their third game in a row - having outscored opponents 12-0 during that span. Barca have won 15 games and drawn four for 49 points and the win put them, temporarily at least, eight points ahead of Real before their game with Malaga.

It was Barca's second highest points total after 19 games - one less than the Spanish champions had at the same point last year. "Last year at this point we had a 12-point advantage over Madrid and we still had to win at the Bernabeu to win the league," their coach Pep Guardiola said. "It's not bad to finish the first half unbeaten, but it remains only an anecdote since we've still got a brutal number of games to play."

In Italy, the Roma coach Claudio Ranieri said he took no extra satisfaction after sealing his first win against Juventus since the Turin club fired him before the end of last since season. John Arne Riise scored in injury time to give Roma a 2-1 away win over Juve. Ranieri, who was fired by Juve two games before the end of last season said: "The city [Rome] is starting to believe in this team, we're having fun and we're playing well.

"I feel nothing personal, I'm part of Roma and I'm happy because we're in the top four. It's an important win because Juve want to stay in the race for a Champions League finish and a win puts them further behind us." Juve's under-fire coach Ciro Ferrara felt his team deserved more from their best performance since beating Inter Milan 2-1 at home at the beginning of December. "This defeat hurts, and even more so because we're going through a difficult period," he said. "It feels unjust. Given what the players did on the pitch in terms of desire, quality and the way they played, I think we deserved more."

* With agencies