Bale’s Long Goodbye Leaves Real With a Big Bill and Only Themselves to Blame

 Gareth Bale (right) has played only 100 of a possible 990 minutes for Real Madrid since La Liga resumed and none at all in the final seven matches. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images
Gareth Bale (right) has played only 100 of a possible 990 minutes for Real Madrid since La Liga resumed and none at all in the final seven matches. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images
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Bale’s Long Goodbye Leaves Real With a Big Bill and Only Themselves to Blame

 Gareth Bale (right) has played only 100 of a possible 990 minutes for Real Madrid since La Liga resumed and none at all in the final seven matches. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images
Gareth Bale (right) has played only 100 of a possible 990 minutes for Real Madrid since La Liga resumed and none at all in the final seven matches. Photograph: Soccrates Images/Getty Images

“If Gareth Bale leaves tomorrow, so much the better for everyone.” It is a year almost to the day since Zinedine Zidane said that, judgment delivered in Houston on 21 July 2019, and not much has changed. Except, perhaps, the most important thing of all: the chances of finding a solution to a situation he has learned to live with, even to laugh at, but which suits nobody. Twelve months later Real Madrid are champions and Bale is still there, a little older and a little more stuck. They all are.

As the final games passed and Madrid edged towards the title, Bale found the focus falling on him. Not on the pitch, where he appeared only twice after football’s return, playing 100 minutes of a possible 990 and none in the final seven games; but in the stands where he was easy prey, even more exposed by the emptiness of the stadiums. And empty is an appropriate word for the place in which he finds himself: a four-time European Cup winner, it is sad it should end like this and sadder still for it not to end like this – to carry on this way, quietly slipping, legacy lost.

Against Alavés, cameras closed in on Bale joking with teammates, feigning sleep with his face mask over his eyes. Against Granada, a reporter spotted Bale spotting him, peering through “binoculars” made from a roll of medical tape and his free hand. Gotcha. And against Villarreal, they saw a peripheral figure on the edge of the picture as Madrid celebrated becoming champions, when he was even in the picture. By the final game, he was no longer there. Left out of the squad – a “technical decision”, Zidane said – he was on holiday when Madrid faced Leganés.

Before the Villarreal game, Zidane had been asked: “After all the off-field noise, do you think that it would be better for the dressing room for Bale to leave Madrid this summer?” Somewhere inside, the word “yes” probably formed, but Zidane shot back: “What a question, man.” Bale, he said, was “one of us”. The following night suggested otherwise, the Welshman an awkward, uneasy presence during celebrations. As teammates gave Zidane the bumps he stood back, arms crossed.

Not joining in might have drawn criticism; joining in, big grin, would have felt false. If it looked half-hearted, slightly embarrassed, that’s probably because it was. Throw Zidane in the air? Bale could be forgiven if he would rather chuck Zidane down a well, only forgiving Bale is not really the done thing any more. There is no photo of him with the trophy, and why would there be? The 2019-20 title is his seventh major medal at Madrid, but it didn’t much feel like his.

Less than a month after Zidane said it would be better if Bale went but Madrid blocked the move to Jiangsu Suning, he put him in the team for the opening game at Celta. Bale started six of the first eight, in fact. But, while there hadn’t been some massive bust-up, something was broken and this was not redemption. “I wouldn’t say I’m playing happily,” he said, “but I am playing.” Soon, he wasn’t. He started once in October, November, December and January, twice in February and not at all in March.

In the big games Zidane still turned to him, clinging to the hope of a reaction, an awareness there were still things he could do better than the rest: he started in Seville, against Atlético and in the clásico, as well as away at PSG. He came on against PSG at home and against Manchester City. But after lockdown Bale started once. In total, he made 12 league starts and four sub appearances, played 124 minutes in the Champions League and 53 in the cup, scoring against third-tier Unionistas de Salamanca. His only two league goals date from 1 September.

In the meantime, there was the fallout from the infamous “Wales, Golf, Madrid” banner, which Bale thought funny and others didn’t. That phrase summed up his lack of commitment to Madrid, some said, his clubs a stick with which to beat him. Bale said he had become a scapegoat. There was a lot of noise, including whistles from his own fans – which he couldn’t understand. And yet slowly it fell quiet. When Zidane was asked “about all the noise” recently, his reaction was driven partly by the sense it was artificially created. “Madre mía,” Zidane said, “you’re trying to make a problem: you always ask the same question.”

The Guardian Sport



Inter Looking to Power Back up Ahead of Champions League Match at Barcelona

 Inter Milan's Italian coach Simone Inzaghi reacts during the Italian Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Roma at the San Siro stadium in Milan on April 27, 2025. (AFP)
Inter Milan's Italian coach Simone Inzaghi reacts during the Italian Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Roma at the San Siro stadium in Milan on April 27, 2025. (AFP)
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Inter Looking to Power Back up Ahead of Champions League Match at Barcelona

 Inter Milan's Italian coach Simone Inzaghi reacts during the Italian Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Roma at the San Siro stadium in Milan on April 27, 2025. (AFP)
Inter Milan's Italian coach Simone Inzaghi reacts during the Italian Serie A football match between Inter Milan and Roma at the San Siro stadium in Milan on April 27, 2025. (AFP)

Strange things happen when Inter Milan plays Barcelona in the Champions League semifinals.

The last time the two teams met in the final four of Europe’s elite club competition, in 2010, Barcelona had to make a 15-hour journey by bus to Milan after an ash cloud caused by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull shut down air space.

Barcelona lost that first leg 3-1 and a stout defensive performance by Inter in the return match saw it advance to the final 3-2 on aggregate — where it beat Bayern Munich to clinch a historic treble under Jose Mourinho.

Inter is hoping it won't have to make a similarly arduous journey after an unprecedented blackout brought much of Spain and Portugal to a standstill Monday.

Power had almost fully returned to Spain early Tuesday morning and Inter’s charter flight was still scheduled to take off for Barcelona at 5 p.m. local time ahead of the first leg of their semifinal on Wednesday.

Barcelona’s 17-year-old star Lamine Yamal said he was caught at the team’s training grounds on the outskirts of the city when power went out just after noon on Monday.

“The truth is that we didn’t know what to do. I was with my teammates all day at the training center,” Yamal said on Tuesday. “The blackout made us all very nervous. But of course, now we are only thinking about the semifinal that we are very motivated to play.”

Inter coach Simone Inzaghi will be hoping his team can power back up for the game as well.

Inter heads to Barcelona following a dire run of results that has seen its dreams of another treble evaporate.

For the first time in more than 13 years, Inter has lost three straight matches without scoring a goal.

Since a 2-2 draw against Bayern in the Champions League quarterfinals, the Nerazzurri have lost 1-0 to both Bologna and Roma in Serie A and 3-0 to AC Milan in the second leg of their Italian Cup semifinal.

That has also seen them been leapfrogged at the top of the Serie A table by Napoli, slipping three points behind the new league leader.

“The three defeats hurt and we’re not used to this, we have to look at ourselves and try to recover our physical and mental energy,” Inzaghi said.

Those three games, however, had something in common: Marcus Thuram was missing.

Thuram, who has been out with a left thigh issue, has scored 17 goals and provided nine assists across all competitions for Inter this season.

Without the France forward, Lautaro Martinez has appeared fatigued attempting to carry Inter’s attack. And Marko Arnautovic, Thuram’s replacement, has been ineffective.

Thuram has returned to training and could even start on Wednesday.

“We’ll head to Barcelona and we will play them with respect, not fear,” Inzaghi added.