2 Years On, Gareth Bale's Real Madrid Career Is Still Defying His Critics
He marked it with the obligatory tweet claiming he “fulfilled a dream,” but two years on from Gareth Bale’s world-record transfer to Real Madrid, there are still plenty of people who are just waiting for that dream to end.
Because as a nation short on genuine success stories of footballers moving abroad, Britain has viewed Bale’s career in the Spanish capital curiously.
Perhaps, as a Welshman, he has escaped the type of attention afforded to English icon David Beckham during his career at the Santiago Bernabeu, but almost ever since his feet touched the ground in Madrid, there have been those waiting for him to fail, to succumb to the pressure of being the costliest footballer in the world and to return to the Premier League with his tail between his legs—probably, according to the persistent links, to Manchester United.
But with the greatest of respect to the Old Trafford institution, why would Bale want to go there right now?
He has immediately, and inevitably, become a key player for his new Madrid manager, Rafael Benitez, starting centrally in a roving trio behind centre-forward Karim Benzema and scoring early and late in the 5-0 demolition of Real Betis last time out.
He takes that form into two crucial Euro 2016 qualification matches for Wales, who are bidding to reach their first major tournament since the 1958 World Cup—a bid he has become the inspiration and driving force behind.
It is one thing to merely be the most talented player in a team, but it is another one entirely to drag them to unfamiliar highs, and Bale—who plays for the ninth-best international side in the world according to the latest FIFA rankings, reported by BBC Sport—has done just that for Chris Coleman’s team.
He’s utilising leadership skills and a resilience he’s picked up in Madrid, where there are many people waiting for him to become just another talented player to pass through the Bernabeu and make the move down—Mesut Ozil, Angel Di Maria, Gonzalo Higuain, Kaka, Arjen Robben, Rafael van der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder come to mind as recent examples, and there are more.
But Bale—much like team-mate Karim Benzema—is sticking around, and he deserves enormous credit for that given he is doing so in the face of severe pressure and following some tough times.
Last season’s Champions League semi-final defeat to Juventus—when he missed a couple of gilt-edged chances—will doubtless have been one of the lowest points in Bale’s career given the stage and the expectation. It is potentially the memories of that game that lead to Madrid fans repeatedly calling for his dropping in weekly newspaper polls, which are reported on with some glee back in Britain, such as here in the Daily Express.
Such is the nature of Real Madrid they are only ever a couple of bad results from a crisis, meaning voices that try to bring up Bale’s role and goals in the finals of the Champions League, which landed the coveted Decima, and Copa del Rey in his first season tend to get shouted down.
At most other clubs, that would ensure his legend for years to come, but for a few seasons, Real appeared to operate a revolving-door policy for the positions alongside the saintly Cristiano Ronaldo, just employing different faces, different names and different profiles to pass the ball to the brilliant Portuguese.
Benzema began to change that, and Bale has now followed suit.
There will always be those who claim he should make a return to the so-called “best league in the world,” the Premier League—such as Jamie Carragher in a Daily Mail column back in May—but Bale is right to stick it out in Madrid.
He’ll probably return to the division one day, but right now, it isn’t too fanciful to believe you could be reading these pages in two years’ time as Bale is celebrating his fourth anniversary in the Spanish capital.
That is certainly to be hoped for anyway, as this story of a Welshman abroad still feels like it has a few chapters to get through right now.
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