Medals don’t matter most
GARETH BALE and Mesut Ozil are both sublime football talents.they are both natural left-footers, both are aged 31 and both have superstar contracts. They earn sums beyond imagination and beyond reason. Ozil is reputed to be paid £350,000 a week at Arsenal. A WEEK.
Bale is widely reported to be on £600,000 a week at Real Madrid. A WEEK.
Right now, these are rewards for not playing football, for being outcasts, for being unwanted luxury trinkets.
You cannot blame the judgement of their respective club managers to ignore them. Grim statistics brook no argument.
This season Bale has scored just two goals, both in the same game, for Real Madrid and had two assists.
He has played just 100 minutes of action since the restart after lockdown.
Ozil has one goal and two assists for The Gunners. He has not been seen on a field since lockdown and only twice even on the bench.
There is no dissent from supporters at either club.they see no ambition or enthusiasm or hunger or dazzle in these once idolised heroes.
Perceptions can be flawed, they can be wrong. But that’s how it looks plain and simple with Bale and Ozil – superstar talents hidden in the shadows.
Then you see the comments last week from Jonathan Barnett, the long-time agent of Bale.there is no sense of pain or anger from the footballer who once commanded a world-record transfer fee.
You can read them only with sorrow in your heart.
“Gareth is fine. He has two years left on his contract,” said Barnett.
“He likes living in Madrid and he is going nowhere. He is still as good as anyone else in the team. Of course there has been interest but there’s hardly a club in the world
THERE have been many outstanding feats of football management in this most curious season.
Jurgen Klopp has been a champion boss, and the work of the longest-serving manager Gareth Ainsworth to take Wycombe Wanders into the Championship for the first time in their history was admirable.
But, truly, has anyone been better than the chap who sits on an upturned bucket on the touchline at Elland Road while guiding his team to glory? Marcelo Bielsa (left) is a unique genius and he will be mesmerising fun in the Premier League with Leeds next season. which could afford him. Bale is one of the best players in the world but the best players in the world don’t move on loan. It’s a sad loss that he’s not in the Real Madrid team at the moment but he will not leave.”
Mr Barnett is wrong. His client is not one of the finest players in the world at the moment.
For the moment, at least, he is not actually a footballer. He is an expensive jewel discarded like a diamond in the window of a second-hand shop that everyone passing by thinks must be a dud.
It is a picture of immense sadness. Bale and Ozil possess too much sparkle to merely gather dust.at the age of 31, they still have years of sporting brilliance to offer if they wish.
Look at Cristiano Ronaldo, once a team-mate of them both at Real Madrid, still at the peak of football as a 35-year-old, chasing the European Golden Boot once more as well as the Serie A title and Champions
League with Juventus. Ronaldo has a big contract, too. The difference is that he demands to be playing in the thick of the action.you cannot imagine him sitting idly on the subs’ bench and letting an advisor tell the world “it’s a sad loss he’s not in the team at the moment”.
Look at so many other excellent modern players who revel in playing football – Karim Benzema, 32, Luis Suarez 33, David Silva, 34, Willian 31, all performing well at the heart of their teams.
Robert Lewandowski is also aged 31 and he is currently heading the Golden Boot race.
Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard played into their mid-30s. Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, a Welsh star like Bale, scampered around in their late-30s.
That is one path ahead for Bale and Ozil.they are not sporting duds, not yet.
What happens now is up to them, whether they are willing to accept a salary reduction as the requirement for a transfer to a new club.
The question at the heart of the matter is stark: Is the number of goals they score and create more important than the figures on their bank balance?
Football lovers will hope so.
There have been few more thrilling sights in recent years than Gareth Bale on the charge, bursting past a posse of defenders and shooting home at full speed.
There have been few players more graceful than Mesut Ozil, lifting the ball over the feet of an opponent with a gossamer touch or caressing a precision pass to a team-mate.
It would be such a pity if the dazzle and the desire has evaporated too early.
THE Tokyo Olympics was supposed to be taking place right now and TV coverage would have been dominated by the hunt for British medals.
It became a towering obsession in the past two decades – and the perils of that have become apparent, with accusations about a bullying culture in sports like gymnastics and cycling.
This is the rotten danger when winning is all that matters, when the finance awarded to individual sports is dependent on medal success.
So, it was heartening to listen last week to Mark England, current head of the GB Olympic team, about a new approach.
“The Olympic Games stands for something which is greater than the pursuit of medals,” said England (above). “Currently we are measured in that way but is it time for the narrative to change?
“We must put in place everything possible to allow athletes to fulfil their dreams.”
Yes is the answer to his question. It is time to change, to end the medal mania.