Motspur Hotspur
Player in Training.
Has all the similarities of his first stint with us. Any chance we draw Inter in the EL and ignite the spark in him?
USspur
Player in Training.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
that's got to be worth half a million quid a week surely?
Havocc
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Bale should watch how good Cavani has been tonight
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
Or any game of himself from 2010
Dave
Player in Training.
His attitude is shite, his commitment on the pitch is shite, if he was even half interested he'd be starting regularly. Get rid of him fast, free up those ridiculous wages and give it to someone who'll give it everything for the club.....end of.
USspur
Player in Training.
Yid
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Has he had an eye test recently???
I love you Arry, but this cunt is taking the piss out of Spurs at the minute.
USspur
Player in Training.
Bale plans to return to Real Madrid
Tottenham's on-loan forward Gareth Bale says he plans to return to Real Madrid next season.
www.bbc.com Yid
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Good.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
Yeah I read that, he's using us to get fit for the euro's, which was apparent all along, at half a million pounds a week. He's Levied Levy and been a bit of a cunt as well.Bale plans to return to Real Madrid
Tottenham's on-loan forward Gareth Bale says he plans to return to Real Madrid next season.
USspur
Player in Training.
ive got no problem with
1) him using us for the euros
2) us using him for a spark
i do have a problem with him being useless once arriving here until about a month ago. Now seems he is going back to being useless until the end of the season
1) him using us for the euros
2) us using him for a spark
i do have a problem with him being useless once arriving here until about a month ago. Now seems he is going back to being useless until the end of the season
J.spurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
When he arrived I didn't think he would have much of an impact one way or another. He's been actually worse than I expected, though to be fair to him, it's not like the place is brimming with optimism and excitement right now. I'll be interested (well, sort of) to see what Madrid have to say about his plans to return. Hard to see where he goes from here tbh. I don't believe all the Spurs fans that are saying he'll sign on a free after Madrid buy out his contract--that shit ain't happening.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
He's 31, The Euro's is likely his last major tournament, He's got another year of £500k a week before he can retire or go and play for Beckhams new franchise in Florida, whilst playing golf in the sunshine inbetween times. I wouldn't being Gareth Bale i just think he should have a bit more respect for the club that helped him get where he is today, however naive that sounds.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
£500k a week is £26m a year btw......I'm not aware of his charitable giving, could be zero and I could muddle through on 10% of that in 1 year, for the rest of my days quite easily.
USspur
Player in Training.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
best stats since Olly Gunnar Solskjaer, who was also traditionally a substitute.
The Cryptkeeper
The Aussie Yid
To be fair, had that last cunt played him he probably lands a 20 goal season.
He was better than a goal for every 84 minutes or so. Great player, had a great season corrupted by an oxygen-stelaing cunt of a manager who can go and fuck himself.
USspur
Player in Training.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
He's a magician, same for second goal......penalties not so much!!
The Cryptkeeper
The Aussie Yid
So Bale can't play two games in a week at club level but has no issue with playing every three days for Wales.
Motspur Hotspur
Player in Training.
He looked knackered for most of it though, very leggy. I put the volley he shinned over the bar down to fatigue, normally you expect him to make a clean contact.
Yid
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Theres no doubting there is phenomenal ability in those legs still... not any where near as much pace or endurance but he can very much still win you games.
I know I gave him pelters and I still think he could have done more in a Spurs shirt (given more opportunities)... but I love how much he loves playing for his country.
I know I gave him pelters and I still think he could have done more in a Spurs shirt (given more opportunities)... but I love how much he loves playing for his country.
Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
Once the Euro's are done and with Ancelotti at Madrid, I'm sure Bale will head back for the sunshine and the golf, at £500,000 a week, I think I'd consider it as well.
USspur
Player in Training.
Gareth Bale's Wales love affair and what it means for his Real Madrid future
After a difficult season, Bale is showing again that he thrives when in a Wales shirt. So what happens next? And when will he call it a day?
Gareth Bale’s Wales love affair and what it means for his Real Madrid future
Laurie Whitwell and Stuart James Jun 19, 2021 52
The roar that emanated from the Wales team huddle after victory over Turkey was so loud it could be heard all the way up in the top tier of Baku’s Olympic Stadium.
Such was the potency of the noise it is tempting to imagine its soundwaves travelled all the way down Heydar Aliyev Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare, and reverberated off Flame Towers — three huge glass structures by the Caspian Sea coast that at night flicker like fires.
At the heart of the circle was Gareth Bale and if there was any question whether the embers still burn for him and Welsh football, the answer was written all over the pitch in Azerbaijan’s capital. Just as he did after their drawn Euro 2020 opener with Switzerland four days earlier, Bale called together his team-mates and the backroom staff following Wednesday’s 2-0 win and gave an emotional monologue.
He began with a joke of sorts, apologising for his shocker of a penalty miss, then told of his conviction that more was to come from all of them. Out of the mouth of someone who had just delivered an awesome display, laying on five clear-cut chances — the most by any player in a single Euros game since Opta records began — the message was compelling.
Bale gives his speech after the Turkey win (Photo: Burak Akbulut/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Bale only started 10 Premier League games for Tottenham Hotspur last season in a year’s loan from Real Madrid, causing him frustration and, to those watching from afar, casting doubt on his ability to still dominate matches at the highest level. Reminders of his class came towards the end of the campaign, however, when he scored a hat-trick against Sheffield United and two goals at Leicester City. His performance against Turkey was further proof that, a month before he turns 32, his quality endures.
There are some close to Bale who feel he was badly mismanaged by Spurs, particular under Jose Mourinho, and all it took was a regular run of games back at the club he left to join Madrid in 2013 for his form to glisten.
Wales manager Robert Page is a skilled orator on matters of national pride, saying after beating Turkey: “We’ve got a lot of players who don’t play regularly for their clubs. Is it the (Wales) crest on their chest that makes them raise their game? It must be. It’s playing for Wales. It’s powerful, and everybody would walk on broken glass to get into this squad.”
Bale, however, is the leader among his peers, leaning on playing pedigree and vast experience to speak with authority and authenticity. He wears the captain’s armband now — together with Page, he decided the players should turn to face the few hundred travelling Wales fans while they sing the national anthem at this tournament — but even at the last European Championship five years ago he organised and inspired.
“He was such a good team-mate, brilliant for me,” says Ashley Williams, who captained Wales on that surprise run to the semi-finals in France. “It would be me as captain, him as vice-captain. We’d make a lot of decisions together.”
One call in 2016 centred on how to handle last-gasp defeat to arch-rivals England in the group phase. Manager Chris Coleman had the idea to replace the next day’s training with a bonding session but Mark Evans, the head of international affairs, recalls Bale playing a role too, on the 20-minute bus ride from Dinard Airport to the team hotel. “When we were coming back from (the England game in) Lens, it was Gareth Bale who pulled everyone together and said, ‘Look, tomorrow we’re not training, we’re gonna play golf, go for a meal’,” explains Evans. “We asked the locals, ‘Where is the best restaurant to go as a group’. The boys went for crepes. Gareth’s message was, ‘We’ve got to get over this, there is another game’. It was about getting out of the hotel and being themselves. Then (in the final group game) we stuffed Russia 3-0.”
Another issue that needed attention before the tournament pertained to player bonuses. A wrangle arose when the squad felt the Welsh FA (FAW) had gone back on an agreement for how the revenue awarded by UEFA would be split. Bale, along with others, argued the team’s case, not for himself but for those players from lower down the football pyramid for whom the extra money would mean a lot more. Joined by Williams, Aaron Ramsey and Chris Gunter, he met FAW chief executive Jonathan Ford.
“It was about having what we felt was realistic, and for some of the lads who come away with Wales, the money was really beneficial,” says defender James Chester. “We were bringing family and friends out to France, that saw off whatever bonus we received. It can look terrible, footballers playing for their country and having disputes over money. But there was no issue from the gaffer or coaching side with us for what we were trying to do. They were on board. It was solely getting a fair share of what the FAW had earned.
“With Wales, Gaz always wanted what was best for us as a group. He would fight so we had the best facilities or best food. He was never somebody who was too big to get involved, he would be the first one to stand up.”
Coleman, his assistant Osian Roberts and development manager Kevin Moon led the way on training facilities at the last Euros, but Bale’s experiences with Madrid inevitably rubbed off on the overall approach.
Bale recognises the importance of taking on the public glare too. Ian Gywn Hughes, the Welsh FA’s head of communications, tells the story of how Bale came to be as regular as clockwork at media briefings during Euro 2016. “We were chatting away about something, second day in Dinard, and he said, ‘When do you want me to do press?’ Straight away. It went so well, he really was relaxed. I spoke with him after, he said that as one of the main players on top of his game, he had a responsibility to the rest of the squad to show some leadership.
“That was it. From then it wasn’t, ‘Do you want to do it?’ It was, ‘When do you want to do it?’ He enjoyed the banter.”
England were a particular target for Bale, who said Wales players had more pride in the national shirt than their English counterparts. “Gaz was revving it up,” recalls then-captain Williams. “I was getting taken off the press conferences to put Gaz on there, because everyone wanted to know what he was going to say. I would have played the rivalry down.”
Each time Bale did a press conference, he would return to the team hotel with cakes from the media buffet, much to the delight of team-mates, if not the Wales fitness staff. Bale has not been quite as frequent in front of the cameras at Euro 2020, but then again, there is no England to bait — not yet anyway.
He has remained a jester around the camp, though.
Hitching his shorts high in the heavy heat of Baku’s Tofiq Bahramov Stadium, the team’s elegant training base, his deep belly-laugh at team-mates losing in warm-up competitions has been a consistent soundtrack. At one point, he took glee in turning a water hose on unsuspecting victims.
A couple of months ago, Tottenham released a video of Bale enthusiastically discussing the existence of aliens with club and country colleague Joe Rodon. It can be assumed the pair have continued the debate in Azerbaijan, even if the third member of Spurs’ Welsh Mafia is not engaging. “I don’t entertain a lot of what those two go on about, with the UFO stuff,” full-back Ben Davies deadpanned when asked. “I try to stay away from that one.”
Nevertheless, this four-time Champions League winner is quite simply “one of the lads” with Wales.
Williams tells The Athletic: “We have had times where he’s won the Champions League, then come straight into camp and it’s like nothing has happened. He has the best personality for someone who has achieved so much. Young lads come in, he makes them feel at home straight away.
“He is one of the biggest jokers. We roomed next to each other and it would be golf balls against the wall. He’d play golf in the corridor. He is just having a good time. He felt at home because we’d known him before he had all that success. He treated us exactly the same.
“He worked hard, he trained properly, he was very professional. Some unbelievable performances for us. And the celebrations — you could see what it meant to him.”
Sometimes his situation at Madrid came up in conversation. Chester says: “Gaz would talk about anything if you asked him, he was fairly open. But he enjoyed coming with Wales to get away from that scrutiny of playing for such a big club.”
Neil Taylor, another veteran of Euro 2016, says the glitz of the Spanish capital never followed Bale back to hometown Cardiff. “I don’t think we ever really felt it with Gaz,” he says. “Gaz is not that superstar type of person. He lives his life differently because he has to have an element of privacy, otherwise it’s frantic for him. But he’s just like the rest of us and I think he felt really comfortable.
“Going into that summer (2016),he was one of the top three players in the world. And other teams knew that. But he handled it really well. He enjoyed being around the group, he was in the zone with how he was playing and he took it all on his shoulders.
“People have talked over the years about how he performs for Wales so well, and I think that’s just because it’s where he feels comfortable. If you’re happy in your environment, I think you can get an extra 20 to 30 per cent.”
Sonny Coleman, son of former Wales manager Chris and a football agent, can describe just how relaxed Bale was in France. On the night Wales beat Northern Ireland 1-0 in the last 16 in Paris, players and families gathered at the team hotel, with Anthony Joshua’s world heavyweight title fight against Dominic Breazeale on the big screen.
“Bale walks in and sits next to me,” Coleman says. “Out of all the players in the team I’d known for five, six years, I’d always been a bit star-struck by him. But we sat there watching the boxing, chilling, chatting. He is this normal bloke in the middle of the best tournament of his life, having a laugh, shouting at random people in the bar, being his usual, pranking self.”
Occasionally, Bale was unable to mix with his friends so easily. On their last night in Dinard before flying home, the squad went out to Davy’s Bar in the centre of town, with Bale arriving late after playing a round of golf with goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey. The locals, out in force to support France in their semi-final against Germany, did not take long to mob Bale, who tried to hide at the back of the room by the pool tables.
Evans, a master of foreign organisation, morphed into an impromptu bouncer as the cameras flashed and attention became fierce. “We were all having a great time, and someone said, ‘Gareth is coming down, he wants to see the boys,’” Evans recalls. “But as soon as he sat down at the back, people turned around and looked at him. That was the first time I realised what being a superstar means — no privacy.”
Evans adds: “Gareth is guarded because he is a global icon. People can take advantage. He is teetotal, that archetypal family man. He is thoughtful.”
Bale’s thoughts often focus on his position, which for Wales has shifted since the last Euros. In France, manager Coleman shaped his team around him and Ramsey, so both could operate as No 10s in a 3-4-2-1 formation and get on the ball as much as possible. A change of personnel prompted successor Ryan Giggs to tweak to a 4-2-3-1 set-up, and at one stage he tried Bale at centre-forward, using clips of Liverpool’s front three to show him how the role could be fluid.
Bale did not warm to that particular task but fortunately Kieffer Moore has emerged to provide a focal point for others to pivot off.
In this system, Bale begins on the right wing but often drifts infield onto his left foot, benefiting from the perpetual motion of Connor Roberts overlapping from right-back. Sometimes, as for the first goal against Turkey, Bale uses Roberts as a decoy. On other occasions, as for the second goal of the same game, Roberts is a jubilant recipient.
The Swansea City player, who watched the last Euros in that city’s pubs, is charmingly humble about the mission of providing a platform to Bale. “When I play for Wales, to be honest, I just say to myself, ‘Give the ball to the good players’,” he says. “I know where my lane is and I’ll try to stay in it. I’ll give it to the likes of Rambo and Gaz.”
Some who have worn the Welsh shirt to great acclaim were privately aghast at Bale twice going for goal rather than keeping the ball in the corner as they hung onto a 1-0 lead late on against Turkey, but his confidence is high having finished the Premier League season with the best minutes-per-goal ratio of any player and Wales will encourage him to keep that kind of creativity. “He showed me the line, so I took it,” was Bale’s assessment, after he set up Roberts’ clincher.
That bullish attitude is at odds with reports he could retire after this tournament.
It also seems unfathomable he will give up the final year of his contract with Madrid.
And yet, Bale has not dismissed the theory when given the chance to, stoking a certain intrigue even as his agent Jonathan Barnett publicly rubbished the suggestion. Indeed, such is gossip in the game, there are wild rumours that a future in professional golf awaits.
Undoubtedly, Bale is still operating at an elite football level and many project he wants to reach next year’s World Cup finals with his country. Whether he has the hunger to keeping playing beyond that tournament next November and December remains to be seen. Could Qatar 2022 prove a fitting swansong to a glorious career?
What happens in the meantime will be fascinating.
On a club level, people at Tottenham were aware weeks ago that Bale did not intend to return for a second season on loan. Since then, though, the dynamic at Madrid has shifted with the return of Carlo Ancelotti, a manager Bale says he gets on with “really well”. The joke goes that under Zinedine Zidane, Bale could have expected to get weekends off, but with Ancelotti he won the Champions League and Copa del Rey, scoring in both finals.
Bale thrived under Ancelotti at Real Madrid from 2013-15 (Photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Another loan elsewhere is said to be out of the question with Bale’s young children in school, but Major League Soccer clubs are investigating their prospects of luring the 31-year-old across the Atlantic. Whether any teams in the US have the financial resources to do so is open to debate, and it is worth noting that lifestyle is important to Bale, who has a growing family living happily in Madrid.
For now, Bale is only focused on the present. He is giving every drop to the Wales cause and with progress to the last 16 all but secured going into Sunday’s group finale against Italy in Rome we can expect him to be in the middle of more huddles during this tournament.
“It is something we do after the game,” he says. “We had a good chat, it was nice for everyone, players and staff, to be involved. Not a lot of the fans see how much hard work the backroom staff put in.”
As ever, Bale the star reflecting his glow on others.
spurious
Player in Training.
Was in Toronto yesterday, looking for a bite to eat...
