Hamburg Captain van der Vaart transfers to Real Madrid

It’s finally offi­cial, Rafael van der Vaart the Nether­lands mid­fielder and Hamburg’s cap­tain is on his way to Real Madrid pend­ing the results of a med­ical. The Bundesliga’s own ver­sion of the Ronaldo affair has come an end. Although the clubs them­selves have not released the details regard­ing the trans­fer fee, reports in the Ger­man media esti­mate it at an ini­tial 13 mil­lion Euros. This fee would increase to 15 mil­lion depend­ing on how suc­cess­ful the Span­ish cham­pi­ons are over the next sev­eral seasons.

Hamburg’s web­site has a farewell inter­view avail­able. Unfor­tu­nately it’s only in Ger­man. Just in case the club does not pro­vide an Eng­lish ver­sion of its own the inter­view has been (quickly) trans­lated* below:

Hsv.de: Rafael, last night Ham­burg and Real Madrid agreed to your trans­fer. You will sign a five-year con­tract with the Span­ish record cham­pi­ons. How are you feel­ing right now and how happy are you that things have finally cleared up?

Van der Vaart: I’m doing well. The trans­fer was agreed upon late in the night. It took a long time and was uncer­tain for quite a while, but now everything’s cleared up. I’m happy about that, but also a bit sad. It was a nice time. As I come back here, see every­thing once more and have to say my good­byes, well, that’s a strange feeling.

Hsv.de: You always stressed that your dream was to play for a club like Real Madrid. What kind of expec­ta­tions do you have of Spain?

Van der Vaart: I hope that every­thing works out like it did with the trans­fer to Ham­burg. You have to real­ize that it’s a com­pletely dif­fer­ent team. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world and the ful­fill­ment of a dream of mine. I would like to play many games and be impor­tant to the team in Madrid. That nat­u­rally depends on both my own per­for­mance and the suc­cess of the club. I’m look­ing for­ward to it.

Hsv.de: You were quite stressed the past few days. Has that now changed?

Van der Vaart: I’m still stressed. So many new things are hit­ting me. I’m fly­ing to Madrid this same day, tomor­row is the med­ical and offi­cial unveil­ing. These are all nice things, but nat­u­rally I’m anxious.

Hsv.de: Over the week­end at the Emi­rates Cup you were able to observe your new team­mates up close. Had you already had con­tact with them, specif­i­cally with your Dutch col­leagues and have they already begun clown­ing around with you in London?

Van der Vaart: Nat­u­rally I spoke often about [trans­fer­ring] with Wes­ley Snei­jder, for exam­ple, but it’s some­thing else when you meet up in the sta­dium. They already had some fun: come over here or go into our dress­ing room. But I was still a Ham­burg player and so behaved like one. I knew that the clubs were in negotiations.

Hsv.de: Bernd Hoff­man proved him­self to be an uncom­prim­is­ing nego­tia­tor. How did you expe­ri­ence the back and forth over the last sev­eral days?

Van der Vaart: It was excit­ing. It was my absolute dream and a big career goal of mine to go to Real. Hoff­man, nat­u­rally and like we all know, nego­ti­ated uncom­pro­mis­ingly. But Ham­burg also earned its money.

Hsv.de: You weren’t in the start­ing lineup at the Emi­rates Cup. Many fans were angered by this deci­sion. Can you explain this?

Van der Vaart: It was a joint deci­sion with the trainer [Mar­tin Jol]. I had so much going through my mind. In that con­di­tion you aren’t able to help the team. Nat­u­rally peo­ple will ask, “why does he want to go, why to Real?” But any­one look­ing in his heart [knows] it’s a dream to play for a club like that.

Hsv.de: You can look back on three won­der­ful and suc­cess­ful years at HSV. What are you going to take from this time?

Van der Vaart: It was, with­out ques­tion, a super time. It was the best deci­sion of my foot­balling career to come to Ham­burg. I expe­ri­enced three won­der­ful years, received a lot of love, enjoyed many beau­ti­ful moments. There were highs and lows, but the fans were always there, that was the best. A sin­gle look into the sta­dium and you know that.

Hsv.de: Your wife felt quite com­fort­able in Ham­burg as well. In addi­tion, your son was born here. Are they both going with you to Madrid?

Van der Vaart: They both are com­ing along tonight. Sylvie will come back in a few days, because she has to return to work. But they’re both mov­ing to Madrid in order to sup­port me.

Hsv.de: Now it’s time to say farewell. Are you leav­ing with mixed feel­ings and is there any­thing else that you’d like to say to the fans?

Van der Vaart: It pains me to move away as well. Espe­cially when I think of the fans. They always sup­ported me even dur­ing the bad times, espe­cially dur­ing the Valen­cia affair. I had goose­bumps every time I played here. When you leave of course it’s easy to say, “Ham­burg will always stay in my heart,” but it’s hon­estly so and will remain that way. I think Ham­burg and I will meet again, maybe as a trainer or as a player, but in any case as a fan. I can only say thanks for everything!

Hsv.de: We would also like to thank you and wish you and your fam­ily good luck in your travels.

* — I replaced HSV with Ham­burg through­out and made some other minor edits.

Tagged as: Bernd Hoffman, Cristiano Ronaldo, Hamburger SV, Martin Jol, Netherlands, Rafael van der Vaart, Real Madrid, Valencia, Wesley Sneijder