The Netherlands international failed to secure regular first-team action at either the Santiago Bernabeu or San Siro, and eventually moved to Gelsenkirchen in the summer of 2010.\"You always know better with the benefit of hindsight, but you still don\'t know what the alternatives would have been,\" the 28-year-old marksman was quoted as saying on the official Fifa website.\"Real Madrid are a fantastic club. I really liked their attacking play, and I felt the club played very good football. I appreciated that.\"Italian football is a bit different, but it has its good points too. As people sometimes say, every rose has thorns,\" he commented.Huntelaar then reflected on his move to Schalke, and is adamant that his transfer to the Bundesliga side was not a step in the wrong direction for his career.\"There\'s no way joining Schalke was a step backwards.