Relationship between the two men is broken but, with three years left on his contract and no other club likely to match his wages, the Welshman is in no mood to go quietly
Gareth Bale did not even get to say goodbye. If, that is, he is even going – and there is no guarantee that the Welshman will leave the Santiago Bernabéu. The message from Real Madrid could hardly have been clearer, right up to the final day of the season when the manager, Zinedine Zidane, left the Welshman on the bench, but that does not necessarily mean he will depart. Nor will he accept any offer and so far there have been none. Instead there is an increasingly bitter stalemate with no easy solution.
Bale is 30 next month and few clubs could pay the required fee, or his €18m net annual salary; fewer still that he would want to join. And without that, there is no way out. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, honestly,” Zidane said on Sunday after Madrid were defeated 2-0 by Real Betis in their last league game, and he was telling the truth. What he does know is what he wants to happen, and everyone else knows that too: there has been little attempt to hide it. The relationship between the two men has long since broken down, going back to Zidane’s previous spell in charge, and in a brief and blunt meeting the manager has told Bale he does not want him to continue at Madrid.
He has in effect told everybody. When Zidane left Bale out of the squad to face Real Sociedad a week ago, he was asked afterwards if it was a message. “It’s clear what I have done this weekend,” he replied. The week before, Bale had been left out of the squad to face Villarreal. This weekend he was included but there were few other players available to make up the numbers and he did not even leave the bench to warm up. If he is to go, as Zidane wishes, he was denied the chance to play one last time. At the final whistle he headed straight down the tunnel without a word.
If this is to be the end, it is a sad close to a career in Spain during which Bale has won the Champions League four times and the league title once, and scored over 100 goals. He scored the winning goal in two Champions League finals, and a penalty in the shootout in a third. In Kiev last year, after months left out of the team, he came on and scored an overhead kick before adding a second to defeat Liverpool. He also scored an extraordinary goal to defeat Barcelona in the 2014 Copa del Rey final, running off the pitch and back on again to get a late winner.
Zidane left a few days after that Champions League final winner. Bale, who had expressed his frustration immediately after the final, publicly stating that he would have to think about his future if things did not change, was one of the few not to publicly wish him well. He had been “angry” at his lack of opportunities throughout the spring, he admitted, and Zidane had offered no explanation. Nor had there been any congratulations after the final.
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