Winger set to miss Red Dragon’s World Cup qualifier against Serbia on Tuesday with the problem.
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Real Madrid’s new world-record signing Gareth Bale has injured his groin while away on international duty with Wales and is now struggling to make his much-anticipated Liga debut for the Spanish giants against Villarreal on Sunday, according to reports in the Daily Mail.
The skillful winger finally completed his long-drawn-out move from Premier League outfit Tottenham Hotspur to the Santiago Bernabeu on Sept 1, with los Blancos forking out a world-record £85m in order to bring the 24-year-old to the Spanish capital on a bumper six-year deal worth 300,000 euros a week.
However, Bale was not signed in time to make his Madrid bow against Athletic Bilbao on Sept 1 and due to the current international break, the winger had been penciled in to pull on the Real No 11 shirt against the ‘Yellow Submarines’ in the league this Sunday.
But those plans may have to be put on hold now after Wales national team head coach Chris Coleman revealed that his star man had picked up a slight tweak to his groin in preparing for the Red Dragon’s FIFA World Cup qualifier with F.Y.R Macedonia in Skopje last Friday night.
And Coleman says that Bale is now highly unlikely to feature for Wales in Tuesday’s qualifier against Serbia in Cardiff due to the injury.
“Gareth picked up a strain in training and couldn’t play. It was disappointing,” said Coleman.
“What was said was that if there was a chance, he would play. It’s obvious. Why wouldn’t he?
“I picked him in the squad because it’s a boost for Macedonia if he hadn’t bee fit. Simple. I was trying to be clever with the tactics. It didn’t work because we lost.
“But it might have affected their thinking.
“But we cannot play a player who says he is not fit. He had a tight groin from the day before.
“We couldn’t take the chance. As we speak he’s having another scan on it. Just to clear in his mind that everything is all right.
“Realistically, he wasn’t going to start the game. At best it would have been half-an-hour that he played. We will see how he feels when we get the results of the scan back.
“He’s not our player, don’t forget. He belongs to Real Madrid. I don’t know if he’ll be ready for the weekend. It’s a big gamble.”