Spain hails ‘Usain Bale’
Madrid fans swoon as they rank stunning goal against Barcelona alongside Zidane’s Hampden masterpiece
GARETH BALE would have been told all about the unique timetable of life in Madrid before he joined. Breakfast at 10am, dinner at 10pm and maybe a mid-afternoon nap — yesterday he found himself going around the city on an opentop bus ride at 4am!
He arrived at the city’s famous Cibeles Fountain, where all trophies are celebrated, about an hour before dawn, five hours after he had truly arrived at Real Madrid with a goal that most supporters are now ranking just a notch below the one that Zinedine Zidane scored to win the 2002 Champions league.
Of the 60-metre sprint that sent him flying past the Barcelona bench, he said: ‘I scored a similar goal for Wales when I ran off the pitch not too long ago.
‘I was just trying to get round the player any way I could. I was off the pitch but I never took my eyes off the ball and thankfully it ended up in the back of the net.
‘It was the biggest goal of my career and it feels amazing to win a first trophy with Madrid.’
Aboard the open-top bus, under a shower of tickertape and with a Madrid scarf around his neck, Bale was embraced by team-mates still struggling to believe the way in which he spared them extra time to win the Copa del Rey.
And, as the Madrid players were taking the trophy to Cibeles in the early hours, the 20,000 supporters who had gone to Valencia to follow them in the final were making their way back on chartered trains. The phrase most heard at Valencia’s Joaquin Sorolla train station was: ‘lo de Bale, nunca he visto nada igual en mi vida’ (What Bale did, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life before).
It summed up the sense that with one moment’s magic he had convinced some of t he hardest-to-please supporters in football that he is some player.
There is nothing like a goal against Barcelona to win over Real Madrid supporters once and for all and for the goal to have been so spectacular and worthy of the first trophy of the season will only push it higher up the club’s all-time rankings.
‘It reminded me of Zidane’s in Glasgow, not because of i ts execution but because of it what it meant. Great players justify their cost with such works of art,’ said Diario AS, adding: ‘He will run even faster from today onwards because he no longer has that huge price tag weighing heavy around his neck.’
The cup is also the first trophy for Real Madrid’s English coach Paul Clement, who had helped Carlo Ancelotti mastermind Madrid’s first win this season over Barcelona.
‘It was an incredible goal,’ said Clement. ‘I’m not sure I have ever seen one like it before. He was at least two to three metres off the field in front of the Barca dugout and, from that point on, you never think it’s going to end up with him putting the ball in the back of the net. It’s just an amazing goal.
‘It’s only his second final, so that was a big game for him and it shows what a great temperament he has. He keeps cool in the big games, he just doesn’t show nerves.’
That coolness was interpreted as detachment by some in the Real Madrid dressing room earlier in the season, especially when injuries meant his time on the pitch dropped to below 50 per cent of minutes played by the team.
But goal by goal — and there have now been 20 of them — teammates have realised that the lack of emotion is part of his make-up as a sportsman and what helps him take match-winning chances that decide cup finals.
That and his extraordinary physical condition that makes him susceptible to injury when he is not 100 per cent, and unstoppable when he is.
‘It just shows what an amazing athlete he is. That he can produce that kind of run so late in the game is incredible,’ added Clement.
Barcelona’s defeated boss Gerardo Martino said: ‘ It’s incredible to see at that stage of the game someone with the power to make that run and then the composure to finish as he did.’
Bayern Munich will present a huge t est f or Bale’s t r eble aspirations but if they play the same high l i ne f avoured by Barcelona — and they usually do — then Bale and Ronaldo could reap the benefits. Clement added: ‘ We have probably two of the best athletes in world football. We have got to get Ronaldo fit as soon as possible, because we need him.’
Bale added: ‘Bayern are a great team and we know we will have to work hard to beat them.’
He also laughed off the suggestion that Ronaldo might struggle to get back into the team, but he will know that although Real’s top scorer remains the first name on the teamsheet, he has given Ancelotti a selection teaser ahead of those Champions league games.
Bale back on the left, where Ronaldo has operated for the last four-and-a-half years, looked very much at home on Wednesday night.
He is starting to look very much at home at Real Madrid.