How has Bale done at Real?

[Dillspur]

What a waste! He’s obviously happy just taking the money! Boils my blood seeing it though, sure his money will keep him happy when his career is finished. He’ll never get those years back, and could have been a world class player who was playing every week at another club! Sad really

He was worldclass in his last year with us and I think his first 2 seasons in Madrid. He won everything with them and wasn't just a passenger, he contributed to their success.

I think he can look back on his time at Real with pride despite the last couple of years, there are players that play a lot longer than him and win nothing and there are players that get horrific injuries and don't even get a career.

He has been treated terribly by Real and their fans, so if he wants to troll them until 2022 I say good on him.

 

[mightyspur]

I think its a waste for him to remain at RM . Taking a few mill less at another club , really at his level of wealth this shouldn't be a major issue.
To hang round a club where he is unpopular and not play much...just to add an extra few percent to his vast wealth .

Call me old fashioned but that looks like greed over personal happiness . Unimpressed .

How do you know he isn't more than happy training a few days a week, watching Real play and getting paid to do it?

 

[Meercat]

I always think opinions like this one above are fan-based, because we can’t believe something we love can be just a job to someone else. Bale is just someone who is good at his job, but I don’t think has the fire burning to prove himself anymore, so isn’t all that worried if he’s paid x million to train and barely play, or x-1 million to actually go on the field every week. Things change when your love becomes your job. I mean, I became a writer because I loved writing, but at this stage, with 50 novels, a few computer games, some RPGs and other credits, it’s not about the love anymore, it’s my job, so I kinda get it, from a slightly different angle.

 

[Gilzeanking]

How do you know he isn't more than happy training a few days a week, watching Real play and getting paid to do it?

Isn't the training the hard bit ? anyway maybe indeed he is happy to coast along not playing .

Slightly unusual tho for an extravagantly talented player like Bale to stop wanting to play at so young an age .

 

[sausage]

Slightly unusual tho for an extravagantly talented player like Bale to stop wanting to play at so young an age .

He seems like one of those sporty types, so has just reflected his passion onto Golf.

I imagine it's harder to crock yourself doing that.

 

[Spursmatty87]

We’d be well pissed if a player did that to us. Think both need to sit down and sort it out not good for him or the club.

 

[Thewobbler]

He's making life difficult for them which is great. He knows he has the power. Hes on a massive contract, that no one outside of china are willing to match. Hes probably hoping they just tear up his deal and pay him off and hes free to go anywhere and get the wages he wants.

 

[he is you know!]

Athletic piece...

Here’s a challenge for anyone who witnessed Real Madrid’s players celebrating their La Liga title in the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano this week: can you find a single photograph that shows Gareth Bale holding the trophy?

As his team-mates cavorted and danced and reacquainted themselves with the trophy, there was something profoundly sad to see Bale — his body language painfully awkward, his clenched fist half-hearted at best — standing on the edges.

He pulled on one of the specially designed shirts that had “Campeones 34” emblazoned across the back to signify how many times that trophy had been in Madrid’s possession.

There was a half-smile but nothing like the joy that could be seen on the faces of the other players. People don’t always smile because they are happy. It is a front sometimes, a defence mechanism — if you have tripped over a curb, perhaps, or taken a snowball directly to the face. This felt like one of those moments.


It also felt like confirmation of what we probably already knew: that Bale’s relationship with Zinedine Zidane was broken, that his heart was no longer in it and that, yes, maybe it was true that he had come to see the Bernabeu as some kind of five-star prison.

As the other players hoisted Zidane into the air, Bale hung back. His arms were folded while all around him it was real euphoria. As the trophy was passed around, there was never a single moment when Bale stepped forward for his turn.

You won’t find a picture of him with the trophy because none exists.

Maybe it was his way of making a point or, more likely, it was embarrassment on his part not to have contributed more to their success. Maybe a bit of both.

All that can really be said for certain is that, as a snapshot of his life in Madrid, these scenes encapsulated what a loveless relationship it has become. And whoever is to blame, whatever the politics, it was difficult to see a player, any player, looking like such an outsider.

It isn’t particularly easy to understand either when it has never been satisfactorily explained why Zidane has so little time for a player who, in happier times, showed himself to be an ideal wearer of Madrid’s colours.

All the usual stuff will be trotted out about Bale being more interested in playing golf than football and apparently never bothering to learn the language during seven years in Spain. No matter that it is untrue on both fronts.

Bale’s attitude, according to reports, risked angering many Madrid fans on their night of celebration. Which was a bit rich given the number of times the Bernabeu crowd have booed and whistled their superstars, even the great Cristiano Ronaldo, and felt obliged to turn on their own.

It’s a wonderful place to visit, the Bernabeu. “La Catedral”, they call it — the cathedral of football. There is also a fair bit of evidence that it houses the most capricious, entitled, ungrateful supporters who have ever watched the sport. Bale, who has not done too badly for the club, had been in Madrid five months when he experienced the white-handkerchief treatment for the first time.

Perhaps a brief refresher might help, starting with the fact that Bale’s 105 goals in 251 games make him Madrid’s fifth-highest goalscorer since the turn of the century. There have been four European Cup wins in that time and Bale has been impudent enough to score in two of the finals. His overhead kick against Liverpool in 2018 is possibly the greatest goal there has ever been in a Champions League final. The run and finish against Barcelona to win the 2014 Copa del Rey was not too shabby either. Bale is a two-time La Liga winner and a three-time Fifa Club World Cup champion. Whatever happens next, no other footballer has ever left Britain to have so much sustained success with one of Europe’s genuine superpowers.



As for those scenes in Madrid earlier this week, Bale’s palpable awkwardness was bound to attract attention, especially when the Spanish media has already decided that he has been guilty too often of blurring his priorities.

Bale was previously pictured with the now-infamous banner of “Wales, Golf, Madrid, In That Order” from the celebrations when Wales qualified for Euro 2020 (and we saw what Bale looks like when he is genuinely happy). Marca, the sports daily, described it as his “umpteenth sign of disrespect” and, though it wasn’t absolutely clear what the others were, we can all probably agree that, politically, it probably wasn’t the smartest move on Bale’s part.

More recently, there was the game against Granada when he amused himself by watching through a rolled-up piece of paper, binoculars-style, and the match against Alaves, fooling around with the other substitutes, when he pulled his face mask over his eyes to feign going to sleep. On both occasions, it didn’t seem like the biggest thing in the world. But this is Real Madrid, where small things quickly become big things. This misconception that he doesn’t care has run and run and run.


(Photo: David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images)
The alternative view is that what we saw during Madrid’s title celebrations was a reminder, if anything, that he does care. His body language was of a player who wanted to have played more and was aggrieved that he had not been allowed to do so.

It would also have been pretty strange if Bale had been among the players giving Zidane the bumps when it might just be — and let’s not dress this up — that he has never disliked another manager so much throughout his entire career.

Was Bale supposed to pretend these were among the happiest moments of his professional life? Was he expected to do cartwheels? Does a footballer require acting skills on top of everything else these days?

Or maybe we could cut Bale a bit of slack and understand that, if he looked awkward, it was because he was exactly that: awkward in the extreme. If he preferred to stay on the edges, maybe it was because he felt marginalised by his manager. If he found it hard to feign a smile, was that any real surprise?

Unfortunately for Bale, he can expect almost no sympathy from the Spanish media when Marca, in particular, seems affronted that he is still a Madrid player. Marca, you may be aware, acts as a mouthpiece for Madrid and takes its briefings directly from the Real Madrid hierarchy. Bale has been a regular punchbag for longer than he would probably care to remember. Though AS, another Madrid-based newspaper, can also go in two-footed sometimes. Thursday was Bale’s birthday. One headline read: “Cristiano left, and Bale disappeared.”

It can certainly feel that way when Bale has been excluded from Madrid’s starting XI for over two-thirds of their league fixtures. Bale has been an unused substitute in 10 of the previous 12 games in La Liga, even though teams can now make five changes. He has not played a full match since January 4. In the latest ominous development he was left out of the 22-man squad for Real’s final game of the season against Leganes on Sunday. His situation looks hopeless and it is probably futile to think it is going to change for the better.

How, after all, do you question Zidane when — even ignoring, for one moment, his achievements as a player — he has won a trophy, on average, every 19 games during his two spells as Madrid’s head coach?

The answer is that you cannot. Zidane wanted to move out Bale last summer and the player was meant to sign for Jiangsu Suning in China until Madrid’s president, Florentino Perez, called it off at the last minute, deciding it made no sense to lose a category-A player for no transfer fee.

The problem for Bale is that not many other clubs can afford his wages, Zidane is playing him less and less and Perez, once a fan of the player, no longer appears to be willing to speak up on the Welshman’s behalf.

Guillem Balague, the Spanish football commentator, told the story this week about speaking to Claude Makelele when he was suffering at Chelsea and the Frenchman telling him: “I just look at my bank account and smile.” Bale can do the same now, was Balague’s verdict, bearing in mind the player has a contract until 2022.

It would be depressing, however, to think that a player with Bale’s uncommon gifts is willing to spend another two years in this position.

Far better for Bale to take his revenge, if that is the appropriate word, by finding a new club and reminding his profession that he is still capable of menacing even the most accomplished defences. Yes, it might require taking a drop in salary. But it is probably safe to assume he is already mind-bogglingly rich and at least it would spare him from being at a club where he feels unwanted, unloved and unused.

At one point during Madrid’s title celebrations, the players came together in the middle of the pitch. Bale could be seen towards the back of the group. He was trying to trip a couple of his team-mates, like a man who knew he was meant to be having fun but didn’t really know the best way to go about it.

It isn’t easy feigning euphoria in the presence of people who are experiencing it for real. It must be even harder, one presumes, when your manager has made it clear he does not want you. Bale has just turned 31 and, even with his history of injuries, it is a time of his career when there should be endless possibilities.

The question he has to ask himself is this: does he really want to hang around at a club where he no longer thinks it appropriate to place his hands on the championship trophy?

(Top photo: Diego Souto/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)

 

[Gilzeanking]

'The problem for Bale is other clubs cannot afford his wages'. . 'problem' my arse .

Bale is in complete control and can go to any other club he wants . That he may earn a few percent less to add to his colossal wealth mountain is no kind of a problem in any of the usual senses of that word .

 

['O Zio]

Never seen a player be so content with picking up a check, being a bit part player while simultaneously trolling the fans and winning everything imaginable. A glorified Jack Rodwell if you will.

Normally I'd agree with you that this kind of thing isn't on, but given how the club, players and fans have treated him in this case I think they're getting just what they deserve. Good luck to him I say.

 

[Matthew Wyatt]

Athletic piece...

Here’s a challenge for anyone who witnessed Real Madrid’s players celebrating their La Liga title in the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano this week: can you find a single photograph that shows Gareth Bale holding the trophy?

As his team-mates cavorted and danced and reacquainted themselves with the trophy, there was something profoundly sad to see Bale — his body language painfully awkward, his clenched fist half-hearted at best — standing on the edges.

He pulled on one of the specially designed shirts that had “Campeones 34” emblazoned across the back to signify how many times that trophy had been in Madrid’s possession.

There was a half-smile but nothing like the joy that could be seen on the faces of the other players. People don’t always smile because they are happy. It is a front sometimes, a defence mechanism — if you have tripped over a curb, perhaps, or taken a snowball directly to the face. This felt like one of those moments.


It also felt like confirmation of what we probably already knew: that Bale’s relationship with Zinedine Zidane was broken, that his heart was no longer in it and that, yes, maybe it was true that he had come to see the Bernabeu as some kind of five-star prison.

As the other players hoisted Zidane into the air, Bale hung back. His arms were folded while all around him it was real euphoria. As the trophy was passed around, there was never a single moment when Bale stepped forward for his turn.

You won’t find a picture of him with the trophy because none exists.

Maybe it was his way of making a point or, more likely, it was embarrassment on his part not to have contributed more to their success. Maybe a bit of both.

All that can really be said for certain is that, as a snapshot of his life in Madrid, these scenes encapsulated what a loveless relationship it has become. And whoever is to blame, whatever the politics, it was difficult to see a player, any player, looking like such an outsider.

It isn’t particularly easy to understand either when it has never been satisfactorily explained why Zidane has so little time for a player who, in happier times, showed himself to be an ideal wearer of Madrid’s colours.

All the usual stuff will be trotted out about Bale being more interested in playing golf than football and apparently never bothering to learn the language during seven years in Spain. No matter that it is untrue on both fronts.

Bale’s attitude, according to reports, risked angering many Madrid fans on their night of celebration. Which was a bit rich given the number of times the Bernabeu crowd have booed and whistled their superstars, even the great Cristiano Ronaldo, and felt obliged to turn on their own.

It’s a wonderful place to visit, the Bernabeu. “La Catedral”, they call it — the cathedral of football. There is also a fair bit of evidence that it houses the most capricious, entitled, ungrateful supporters who have ever watched the sport. Bale, who has not done too badly for the club, had been in Madrid five months when he experienced the white-handkerchief treatment for the first time.

Perhaps a brief refresher might help, starting with the fact that Bale’s 105 goals in 251 games make him Madrid’s fifth-highest goalscorer since the turn of the century. There have been four European Cup wins in that time and Bale has been impudent enough to score in two of the finals. His overhead kick against Liverpool in 2018 is possibly the greatest goal there has ever been in a Champions League final. The run and finish against Barcelona to win the 2014 Copa del Rey was not too shabby either. Bale is a two-time La Liga winner and a three-time Fifa Club World Cup champion. Whatever happens next, no other footballer has ever left Britain to have so much sustained success with one of Europe’s genuine superpowers.



As for those scenes in Madrid earlier this week, Bale’s palpable awkwardness was bound to attract attention, especially when the Spanish media has already decided that he has been guilty too often of blurring his priorities.

Bale was previously pictured with the now-infamous banner of “Wales, Golf, Madrid, In That Order” from the celebrations when Wales qualified for Euro 2020 (and we saw what Bale looks like when he is genuinely happy). Marca, the sports daily, described it as his “umpteenth sign of disrespect” and, though it wasn’t absolutely clear what the others were, we can all probably agree that, politically, it probably wasn’t the smartest move on Bale’s part.

More recently, there was the game against Granada when he amused himself by watching through a rolled-up piece of paper, binoculars-style, and the match against Alaves, fooling around with the other substitutes, when he pulled his face mask over his eyes to feign going to sleep. On both occasions, it didn’t seem like the biggest thing in the world. But this is Real Madrid, where small things quickly become big things. This misconception that he doesn’t care has run and run and run.


(Photo: David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images)
The alternative view is that what we saw during Madrid’s title celebrations was a reminder, if anything, that he does care. His body language was of a player who wanted to have played more and was aggrieved that he had not been allowed to do so.

It would also have been pretty strange if Bale had been among the players giving Zidane the bumps when it might just be — and let’s not dress this up — that he has never disliked another manager so much throughout his entire career.

Was Bale supposed to pretend these were among the happiest moments of his professional life? Was he expected to do cartwheels? Does a footballer require acting skills on top of everything else these days?

Or maybe we could cut Bale a bit of slack and understand that, if he looked awkward, it was because he was exactly that: awkward in the extreme. If he preferred to stay on the edges, maybe it was because he felt marginalised by his manager. If he found it hard to feign a smile, was that any real surprise?

Unfortunately for Bale, he can expect almost no sympathy from the Spanish media when Marca, in particular, seems affronted that he is still a Madrid player. Marca, you may be aware, acts as a mouthpiece for Madrid and takes its briefings directly from the Real Madrid hierarchy. Bale has been a regular punchbag for longer than he would probably care to remember. Though AS, another Madrid-based newspaper, can also go in two-footed sometimes. Thursday was Bale’s birthday. One headline read: “Cristiano left, and Bale disappeared.”

It can certainly feel that way when Bale has been excluded from Madrid’s starting XI for over two-thirds of their league fixtures. Bale has been an unused substitute in 10 of the previous 12 games in La Liga, even though teams can now make five changes. He has not played a full match since January 4. In the latest ominous development he was left out of the 22-man squad for Real’s final game of the season against Leganes on Sunday. His situation looks hopeless and it is probably futile to think it is going to change for the better.

How, after all, do you question Zidane when — even ignoring, for one moment, his achievements as a player — he has won a trophy, on average, every 19 games during his two spells as Madrid’s head coach?

The answer is that you cannot. Zidane wanted to move out Bale last summer and the player was meant to sign for Jiangsu Suning in China until Madrid’s president, Florentino Perez, called it off at the last minute, deciding it made no sense to lose a category-A player for no transfer fee.

The problem for Bale is that not many other clubs can afford his wages, Zidane is playing him less and less and Perez, once a fan of the player, no longer appears to be willing to speak up on the Welshman’s behalf.

Guillem Balague, the Spanish football commentator, told the story this week about speaking to Claude Makelele when he was suffering at Chelsea and the Frenchman telling him: “I just look at my bank account and smile.” Bale can do the same now, was Balague’s verdict, bearing in mind the player has a contract until 2022.

It would be depressing, however, to think that a player with Bale’s uncommon gifts is willing to spend another two years in this position.

Far better for Bale to take his revenge, if that is the appropriate word, by finding a new club and reminding his profession that he is still capable of menacing even the most accomplished defences. Yes, it might require taking a drop in salary. But it is probably safe to assume he is already mind-bogglingly rich and at least it would spare him from being at a club where he feels unwanted, unloved and unused.

At one point during Madrid’s title celebrations, the players came together in the middle of the pitch. Bale could be seen towards the back of the group. He was trying to trip a couple of his team-mates, like a man who knew he was meant to be having fun but didn’t really know the best way to go about it.

It isn’t easy feigning euphoria in the presence of people who are experiencing it for real. It must be even harder, one presumes, when your manager has made it clear he does not want you. Bale has just turned 31 and, even with his history of injuries, it is a time of his career when there should be endless possibilities.

The question he has to ask himself is this: does he really want to hang around at a club where he no longer thinks it appropriate to place his hands on the championship trophy?

(Top photo: Diego Souto/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)

Lately I've read this very article more or less paraphrased in several publications and it's so sad. Reads like an obituary.

They missed out the best bits ... "he'll always be a left back nah more of a wing-back get a defensive left-back in and he's the left side of our attack no wait better in the hole keep them guessing yesss!!! will you look at what he just did??! we're like a one man team AVB would be out of a job quiet down to earth young man he's happy here ... you what? thoroughbred racehorse of a footballer couldn't blame him for wanting to win something good luck Gareth it's been real come back soon at least we got seven players we've never heard of and Tim Sherwood". Fun times!

 

[nailsy]

What a waste! He’s obviously happy just taking the money! Boils my blood seeing it though, sure his money will keep him happy when his career is finished. He’ll never get those years back, and could have been a world class player who was playing every week at another club! Sad really

What do you expect him to do? He agreed to leave in the summer transfer window and the club pulled the plug on the deal. It's not his fault he's still there and it's not his fault that the manager won't play him. Demanding to leave when the transfer window isn't even open isn't going to help.

'The problem for Bale is other clubs cannot afford his wages'. . 'problem' my arse .

Bale is in complete control and can go to any other club he wants . That he may earn a few percent less to add to his colossal wealth mountain is no kind of a problem in any of the usual senses of that word .

It's not a few percent though is it? He's meant to be on £600k a week. If he came back to England he probably wouldn't earn half that. I know it's still a lot of money, but it does give him a decision to make.
As you say he is wealthy so he can make whatever decision he wants and not have to worry about it. It seems that he loves the lifestyle in Madrid outside of the football environment.

 

[fuzzylogic]

What do you expect him to do? He agreed to leave in the summer transfer window and the club pulled the plug on the deal. It's not his fault he's still there and it's not his fault that the manager won't play him. Demanding to leave when the transfer window isn't even open isn't going to help.

what I expect him to do is act professionally for starters! To be honest he should have left Madrid a good few transfer windows ago if he wanted to make the most of his talent. I wouldn’t be happy with his actions in our shirt if he was pulling off that kinda shit! But hey each to their own

 

[jay2040]

what I expect him to do is act professionally for starters! To be honest he should have left Madrid a good few transfer windows ago if he wanted to make the most of his talent. I wouldn’t be happy with his actions in our shirt if he was pulling off that kinda shit! But hey each to their own

He did make most of his talent- did you not see the overhead kick in the CL final?

Respect him for not being bullied out and sticking it out as it can't be easy.

 

[fuzzylogic]

He did make most of his talent- did you not see the overhead kick in the CL final?

Respect him for not being bullied out and sticking it out as it can't be easy.

yup I did! It was a peach! But he should have been tearing teams apart! Respect for him for going through such a horrific ordeal whilst being paid 300+ grand a week. Can only imagine how tough that is

 

[nailsy]

what I expect him to do is act professionally for starters! To be honest he should have left Madrid a good few transfer windows ago if he wanted to make the most of his talent. I wouldn’t be happy with his actions in our shirt if he was pulling off that kinda shit! But hey each to their own

Other than the sign what's he done that would upset you? The recent stuff like the sleeping mask, the binoculars and not getting in the middle of the celebrations are mountains out of molehills.

 

[Gilzeanking]

It's not a few percent though is it? He's meant to be on £600k a week. If he came back to England he probably wouldn't earn half that. I know it's still a lot of money, but it does give him a decision to make.
As you say he is wealthy so he can make whatever decision he wants and not have to worry about it. It seems that he loves the lifestyle in Madrid outside of the football environment.

Yes , my only complaint was the description of this decision being Bale's 'problem' .

 

[yankspurs]

We’d be well pissed if a player did that to us. Think both need to sit down and sort it out not good for him or the club.

Hang the fuck on. Bale did not bring this treatment upon himself. Real’s fans always hated him because of a perceived rivalry with Ronaldo. Bale proceeded to win them multiple trophies yet still wasnt accepted and Ronaldo’s garbage time goals were/are more celebrated. Bale never really had a chance. He’s since been hard done by injuries and a manager who hates him. The final straw with Real fans was Ronaldo leaving which they blame Bale for. The fans have also been egged on by the media’s harassment of him. The only think Bale is guilty of was trying way too hard to be like Ronaldo. There is no sit down needed. The Madrid fans need to have a nice, long, hard look at themselves in the mirror.

With regard to our fanbase, I might be wrong, but I dont think our fans have ever openly hated, frothed out the mouth & detested the sight of a player directly after he signed for us. So no, we would never subject a player to the same treatment that Bale has received at Madrid or ever be pissed at a player for no earthly reason besides existing.

 

[DJS]

Gareth Bale: Zinedine Zidane reveals Real Madrid forward 'didn't want to play' vs Manchester City

City won first leg 2-1 in February; Bale not injured but omitted from 24-man squad

www.skysports.com

Zidane showing his class again.

Pathetic.

 

[dtxspurs]

What a strange time he's had there the last few years.