Footballers certainly aren't payed £100K a week for their skills in critical analysis

I have been following the Ruud Van Nistelrooy transfer-saga with only partial interest. I find that when a story like this is dragged out and given an unnecessary amount of attention, I tend to keep up with it only out of habit. I certainly don't think that the story has deserved the coverage it has received- given, V. Nistelrooy has scored a lot of goals for United, but he is an aging striker, entering the final years of his somewhat illustrious career.

One thing that I don't understand is comments like this- Van Nistelrooy claims, as quoted on the Real Madrid website, that he is

"very happy to be at the best club in the world",

that for him, "To come here is a football dream and it has finally become reality",

and that "When Real Madrid come looking, you do not have to think because they are the number one".

This isn't the first time that an advance from Real Madrid has prompted a player to make such a swift decision to switch shirts, as well as such overblown and quite blatantly untrue comments such as these. Basically, V. Nistelrooy has chosen to give up playing with some of the brightest, most talented young football starts on the planet (i.e. Rooney, Ronaldo, and now potentially Carrick), so he can fight for his place in the starting line-up of a squad full of geriatrics. I mean, come on, talk about an over rated team. What have Real Madrid accomplished in the last 4 years?

I suppose I just don't understand why so many players keep deluding themselves into thinking that Real Madrid is the best team in the world, and that a move there will in some way actually help their career. Not that I'm particularly sad to see V. Nistelrooy go- his time is up, and he didn't fit into Sir Alex's 1st team plans any longer. I think it is just symptomatic of one of two things- the complete delusion with which some players view the football world, or the desire of a has been to save some face.