A Baleful Bye-bye

GARETH BALE'S LONG FAREWELL TO REAL & THE BERNABEU

Even the best love affairs can end in tears, messily and full of recriminations.

So it is that Gareth Bale, who was the hottest property in the transfer market when Real Madrid gleefully snaffled him from Tottenham six years ago and has scaled the heights with his storied club, is now mired in the midst of an ugly and protracted divorce from the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.

"If it is tomorrow, even better," manager Zinedine Zidane tartly told reporters at the weekend, when asked if Bale was leaving.

"Zidane is a disgrace", Bale's agent Jonathan Barnett retorted. It seems their bridges are truly burned.

So since he is persona non grata with Zidane, the gilded moments of Bale's adventures in a white shirt may as well count for nothing now:

*A spectacular winner in the 2014 Copa del Rey final when he ran out of touch to avoid Barcelona's Marc Bartra but regained the ball and charged up the left flank to score.

*His extra-time close-range header against city rivals Atletico to bag Real's decima (tenth) European Champions Cup the same year.

*A double in the 2018 Champions League final against Liverpool, his first a spectacular bicycle kick.

*A hat-trick in the 2018 FIFA World Club Cup semi-final against Kashima Antlers

Bale's overall stats for Real tell a stellar story and one which should put him into the annals as British football's premier export.

Since moving from North London to Madrid, Bale has won four UEFA Champions League trophies, three FIFA Club World Cups, one La Liga championship and one Copa del Rey and scored 102 goals in 231 games, more than double what Zidane netted for Real in a similar amount of matches.

By any measure then he has made a good return on the £85 million they paid Tottenham in September 2013 but he has suffered his fair share of boos at the Bernabeu (who hasn't?) and is now about to depart in acrimony as his manager does not value him.

Zinedine Zidane has wanted the Welsh wizard out for at least a couple of seasons but has been thwarted by Bale's excessive salary of £600,000 per week, which puts off potential buyers, the soft spot team owner Florentino Perez has for the Cardiffian and finally Bale's habit of popping up to score important goals.

plan to offload him that close season more difficult, and when he learnt the club would not fork out for big names in the wake of Cristiano Ronaldo's exit, he decided to exit stage left himself rather than become the fall guy for the side's expected decline.

In a quirk of fate Zidane has climbed back upon the Real rollercoaster less than a year after stepping off it but maintains a lack of faith in Bale, who to be fair has been increasingly absent with injuries. This salient fact does give Zidane some leverage in his impending departure, but it is still a pity we will not see the Welshman develop a relationship with new star Eden Hazard alongside familiar teammate Karim Benzema - the GBH?

Having been reading the last rites for the past few days, Zidane brought on Bale for the second half of their friendly with Arsenal in Maryland yesterday only for Bale to score and furrow his manager's brow in the process.

To add injury to insult, so to speak, midfielder Marco Asensio went off injured with an ACL tear in his left knee which will require months on the sidelines, but the Spaniard's absence might just, maybe, make Zidane think again about Bale, or even recall another discarded star, James Rodriguez to the Bernabeu.

idea of him playing in the reserves until then is preposterous.

With potential suitors Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Manchester United apparently coy about his salary requirements or out of the running full stop, perhaps the megabucks deal offered by Chinese Super League club Jiansu Suning looks to have legs.

With Wales unlikely to dispense with their talisman even if he is based in Asia, the move would be an extraordinary boost to Chinese football's credibility.

At 30 years of age, Bale is not about to leave the football stage either, whatever Zidane thinks of him.