Van Nistelrooy was United’s star striker in the early 21st Century.
One of the world’s most famous players rose to worldwide notoriety during his time at Manchester United. Ferguson sold him to Real Madrid in 2009 for £80 million, making him the most expensive player of all time.
He posted this picture along with this thankyou on Twitter of the two of them together:
Malcolm Glazer is the owner of Manchester United (also the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL) and has provided Ferguson with the monetary backing to challenge for trophies over the years.
The last big investment Ferguson requested he finance was the purchase of Robin Van Persie from Arsenal. The transfer cost £24 million, and turned out to be a massive success, the Dutch striker becoming the league’s top scorer for the second season in a row.
One of England and United’s greatest ever players, who stepped onto the Manchester board in 1984, a decade after retiring.
He played an integral part in bringing a young Ferguson to the club from Scottish club Aberdeen.
Manchester Utd stormed to the 2012-13 league title basically unchallenged. Their closest rivals, second placed Manchester City, were over a dozen points behind them with half a dozen matches to play.
United have some of the oldest and youngest stars in the league. Ryan Giggs, who has been part of the squad since 1992, will become the oldest outfield player in league history next season.
United also have several promising youngsters experiencing regular top-level football at the club. Young lads David De Gea, Tom Cleverly, Alex Buttner and Danny Welbeck have all featured in this season’s campaign.
Ferguson, who turned 71 this year, took over Manchester United in 1986. A fortnight ago he led Manchester Utd to their 20th Premier League title.
After breaking the all-time league titles record several years ago, overtaking Liverpool’s eighteen titles, many thought he would stay in charge at least until United matched Liverpool’s all time haul of 41 trophies.
The top two teams in the Championship are promoted automatically to the Premier League.
The next four teams go into a round of knockout matches, culminating at a final at Wembley Stadium that decides who will become the third team to progress to England’s highest league.
Leicester City were favourites for promotion before the season started, and for several months it seemed like this was the year they would live up to expectation. They were challenging for the Championship title until after xmas, but then underwent a dramatic late collapse in form.
The Foxes finished the season with just one win in their last 12 matches, but sneaked through into the play-off spots thanks to a 3-2 away win at Notts Forest.
Cardiff City will become the second Welsh team in the Premier League next season, following their rivals Swansea.
Cardiff’s season was a relatively comfortable one, and they won the league by a decent margin of points, but at the beginning things looked unsettled. New Malaysian owners came in and immediately “rebranded” the club, going so far as to change the colour of Cardiff’s kit, which had been navy blue for over a hundred years, to a bright red.
