After Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure to Juventus Turin, Gareth Bale was to assume the role of Real Madrid leader. A year later the plan is gone – and the Welsh man quietly disappears through the back door despite his great success as a victim of mobbing. A story about a sad, partly self-inflicted crash.
Gareth Bale would have been well advised in the early evening of 24 February to hide his smartphone in his trouser pocket just for a tiny moment. After arriving at the Estadio Ciudad de Valencia, the Real Madrid striker strolled through the catacombs, teeming with curious members of the press, far away from his colleagues, wearing headphones and concentrating on what was happening on the screen in his right hand.
The fact that some reporters filmed him did not interest him very much. Perhaps in all his carelessness, he even thought it would be no problem to stream the final of the World Golf Championship in Mexico so shortly before the away game at UD Levante. It was not without reason that he had once revealed in an interview that in his spare time he preferred to watch golf rather than football. According to the 29-year-old, he interprets football more as work than “beautiful work”, and he wants to do it as well as possible. This was not necessarily evident in the early evening of 24 February. But all the more late for that. Bale helped the Madrilenians with a penalty goal in the 78th minute to a happy 2-1 win in the end.
But no one cared after the final whistle. At this point, the scene before the match was already running up and down in every Spanish sports show. Experts appointed ex-professionals complained a great deal about Bale’s behavior, accused him of lacking professionalism and respect for the team, forced him into the role of the bored millionaire. The next day, the big Madrid newspapers such as Marca, AS or El Pais once again published all kinds of fairy tales. One of them was that Bale would have asked his coach at the time, Santiago Solari, not to have to travel to Valencia to watch the final of the World Golf Championship from the comfort of his own sofa.
It was one of those many fairy tales that Bale’s advisor Jonathan Barnett had to deny after his move from Tottenham Hotspur to the Royals in the summer of 2013 to soften public resentment against his client. It was one of those many mosquitoes that became elephants. If it had been a Spanish player like Isco, Marco Asensio or Dani Carvajal, nobody would have talked about it.
But it was Bale. With a transfer fee of 101 million euros, this is still the most expensive purchase in the history of the club, where the spirits divide because he interprets his game in a very British way, but rather comes through speed and strength than technical finesse. It was Bale. The hate figure of many journalists who are under daily pressure to produce headlines related to Real.
After almost six years in Madrid, the man with the number 11 still doesn’t speak Spanish, hardly gives interviews for fear of false translations, avoids the spotlight. He doesn’t identify with the country as much as most of his teammates do, spending his free days with his family in his luxury villa in La Finca, the wealthy suburb of Pozuelo de Alarcon in Madrid, or traveling to his homeland to hit a few golf balls over the Welsh green.
Just how badly this behaviour pattern is received by the Spaniards, who are often too patriotic, becomes clear in almost every Real home game. The fans are pitilessly whistling Bale out. Not only in unsuccessful actions. Also for substitutions and replacements. They see him as a problem, not a help. It’s curious when you consider that he hasn’t played a small part in the four glorious Champions League victories over the past five years. On the contrary, he was more often the deciding man in the finals than Cristiano Ronaldo.
In 2014, Bale scored the important 2-1 lead against Atletico in extra time, then two years later converted safely on penalties against Jan Oblak and even scored two goals to fool Liverpool FC in 2018. One of them was a kickback, perhaps the most beautiful goal ever scored in a premier class final. On the other hand, in all these years, the left foot never set out to mature into the figurehead of the galactic star ensemble. Even after Ronaldo’s departure last summer, he appeared isolated on and beside the lawn. With the exception of Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, Bale rarely talked to his team-mates, was the only professional to skip a team evening next to Kroos and, after two games, left in his own car instead of the team bus.
In addition, many injuries made his final breakthrough more difficult – and Real the mammoth task of mastering the first year of the post-Ronaldo era halfway damage-free. All this led even his greatest patron to move away from him. Florentino Perez, the powerful Real President, had often praised his king transfer Bale internally as a better player than Ronaldo and therefore had to deal with several coaches who disagreed. So is Zinedine Zidane. The Frenchman would have rather sold Bale than Ronaldo last summer. Since Perez refused, Zidane threw in the towel. Three quarters of a year later, Perez brought Zidane back. “The death sentence for Bale,” as El Mundo aptly wrote.
Since the club icon’s comeback in mid-March, the Welsh international has only been on the pitch eight times. Zidane recently struck him off the squad twice, and at the dignified end of an unworthy season against Betis Sevilla (2-0) he braised on the bench for 90 minutes. It would have been Bale’s last chance to say goodbye to the Santiago Bernabeu crowd with a touch of decency.
Even though Zidane has not yet made a clear statement on the future of the 29-year-old, no one assumes that this misunderstanding will continue. Bale has gone from being a bogeyman practically since his arrival to a victim of mobbing, a worn-out toy that will soon be replaced by one or more new ones. Eden Hazard, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar – the list of possible successors is long.
“It’s impossible for Bale to stay,” ex-Real President Ramon Calderon told British broadcaster BBC on Monday. A change is “the best decision” and “long overdue” for all involved. Where the journey of the disenchanted superstar leads is still completely open. Above all his ex-club Tottenham is said to be of interest. However, Bale would have to accept financial losses if he returned to London. At Real he allegedly earns 17 million euros net a year – too much for the Spurs. According to Calderon, even a loan as in the case of James Rodriguez, whom Real parked with FC Bayern, is “conceivable”. For Bale there is at least no hurry, his contract with the Blancos is still valid until June 30, 2022.
Even if in reality he is not the bored millionaire for whom many in Spain think he is, he will calmly think about his future. Probably on one or two rounds of golf.
