Van Nistelrooy, who joined Manchester United in a 19 million pound (34 million dollar) move from PSV Eindhoven three years ago, has been linked with the Spanish giants as United were said to be looking for 30 million pounds (55 million dollars) in order to buy 18-year-old England sensation Wayne Rooney from Everton.

But van Nistelrooy, one of the few big name strikers to leave Euro 2004 with his reputation enhanced, insisted he will not be leaving Old Trafford.

"Sir Alex Ferguson is going to build his third top team and I want to be a part of that. We are building a new team, a team to win the Champions League," the Dutch striker said.

"United have become my club. United are, for me, the only club.

"I am perfectly satisfied here and the club are satisfied with me. Why on earth would I leave?"

Van Nistelrooy spoke to Ferguson before signing a new contract in January, and added: "The talks were not about money. The manager explained his plans for the future and those plans were very appealing to me.

"The very next day I signed the contract. I want to stay for the rest of my career and that is a great feeling for me."

He made it clear he and girlfriend Leontien Slaats had no intention of living in Spain.

"We feel at home here. We live well and we are perfectly happy. We don't want to go to Spain."

Van Nistelrooy scored four goals in the Netherlands' first four matches here but he was unable to add to his tally as his side went down to a 2-1 defeat by Portugal in their semi-final on Wednesday.

The striker was not convinced about the offside decision that saw a first-half strike ruled out but overall he had no complaints about the outcome of his biggest match yet for his country.

"The best team won," he acknowledged. "They played better football than us and they created better chances.

"It is unfortunate that we were pushed backwards and couldn't play our normal game. We knew they had a lot of quality players and that we would have to be at our best to win. Unfortunately we were not."

Van Nistelrooy, who turned 28 on Thursday, was playing in his first major tournament having missed Euro 2000 through injury and the last World Cup as a result of Holland's failure to qualify.

The Dutch went into their semi-final with 48 hours less time to recover from their quarter-final against Sweden than Portugal enjoyed following their equally gruelling win over England.

But van Nistelrooy said fatigue had not been a factor.

"I felt okay and the team all felt pretty fit. They had more rest than us but I don't think that was the problem.

"Portugal were pushing on our defence straight away and we could not play our football or get our wingers into play.

"They just dominated the whole game and a lot of the time I was up front on my own and it was hard to do anything."