Bale eager to show new generation he can still cut it
Time is running short for Real’s superstar to resume hostilities in the Premier League and end career on a high
News from Spain where the prince in comfortable exile has signalled his intention to return – although what Gareth Bale it might be who comes back to the Premier League, only time will tell. Can he still fly past full-backs in the outside lane? Is there a formation that permits him to do so? Will he learn the language?
Much water has passed under the bridge since his departure in 2013 when Tottenham Hotspur financed seven signings with the proceeds of what was later disclosed as a world-record fee from Real Madrid. The whereabouts of the seven now is not an entirely happy story. Vlad Chiriches, Roberto Soldado, Etienne Capoue and Paulinho did not make it past a second season at Spurs.
Nacer Chadli lasted one year longer and Christian Eriksen was the single unqualified success. Only Erik Lamela remains at the club, a player whose promise has always been just tantalisingly ahead of his output, and now faces the curious prospect of being replaced by the man he replaced.
Bale in 2013 was a phenomenon unlike any other in the Premier League, a home-grown footballer who had developed beyond even the most optimistic expectations for a fragile boy of undoubted talent.
He was the accidental superstar; his run in Spurs’ first team only really began in January 2010 when injuries meant he went into the side for an FA Cup third-round tie against Peterborough. By the end of the season, he was a regular – although by no means prolific. The following October he scored that hat-trick in San Siro and a couple of weeks later tens of thousands of taxis were being hailed for Inter Milan’s embattled full-back Maicon at
White Hart Lane. Bale had arrived on the European stage.
He left ft the Premier League at 24, an astonishing onishing ransacker of defences. He has played less regularly in Madrid over seven seasons but his numbers – 105 goals in 251 games in all competitions – are by no means ns shabby.
There e have been much bigger trophies at Madrid but ut nothing like the e impact of Bale’s ’s final season at
Spurs when he scored 21 goals and swept the board at the Professional Footballers’ Association awards. At 31 it is a lot to live up to.
Still, there is no better way to end his career than seeing if he can mix it anew with Trent Alexander-arnold or give his old team-mate Kyle Walker twisted blood. At last the flickering flame of competition in Bale seems to have been renewed and who cares if a legacy might be at stak stake. Here is a footballer, once unpl unplayable, potentially returning to the Premier League to try to do battle w with a new generation. Seven more years in his legs, something like th the GDP of Wales in his bank account account: has he still got it? This is how all great careers should end – no not alone with one’s butler at the g grace and favour apartment provid provided by Guangzhou Evergrande, but in the fiery uncertainty of a comba combative away match at Turf Moor.
For some time it had seemed that Bale had made hi his peace with being that awkward pa passenger at Madrid. Contracts are co contracts of course, but all big club clubs will eventually squeeze out tho those they no longer want.
Once you make mak your peace with that, then the po possibilities are endless. Time is sh short for Bale to do what he does best. bes He can play that replica Augusta 11th hole in his back garden for the rest of his life, but there are onl only a few more years he can play Old Trafford, Anfield and the others others.
Bale woul would be coming back to the leagu league in which he once made life i impossible for fullbacks the age he is now. He fitted we well at the Spurs of that era era, although in the meanti meantime expectations have r risen. At Manchester U United those expectatio tations have never be been less than skyhi high and the club ha has had a habit in re recent years of weighing down its biggest signings. When Bale last pl played against Un United, Sir Alex Fergu guson was in charge. Y Yet there is somethin thing of the eternal teen teenager about Bale and his trust in his own talent suggests there is little that worries hi him. He should have return returned earlier, after that f fourth Champions League in 2018, but better late than never.