It’s still not completely clear if Gareth Bale’s celebrations with that flag were an attempt to eventually free himself from Madrid, or just a gleeful bit of fun in a terrific moment.
The flag with “Wales,golf,Madrid” was always going to get some headlines, but the furious reaction of the Spanish press has only helped to fuel speculation that Bale might be looking for a move at some point soon. It’s still ironic that some Spanish outlets have spent months trying to drive Bale away from Real, only to be outraged when he turns it back on them.
AS reported on a recent press conference with Zinedine Zidane, and it certainly doesn’t sound like he has any plans to let Bale leave at this point. Here are some of the key quotes:
“I’m counting on Bale and that’s nothing new. He will be tuned in again.”
“There has been a lot of noise on the Bale stuff but I look at him from a footballing point of view.”
“He looks pretty happy to me,”
“Bale can be decisive, He is a very, very important player. Everyone is different, and now he is here and I’ll be counting on him.”
“Everyone has their opinion. Bale is my player, he played for Real Madrid and that’s all I’m interested in.”
The report even goes on to suggest it’s likely that he will play for Real Madrid this weekend, so it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction he gets. We’ve seen that most people associated with Real Madrid are very fickle, so if he plays well then it will be forgotten about pretty quickly.
It’s also interesting to see the big difference in Zidane compared to the Summer. He had been actively talking about wanting Bale to leave the club, but now he does nothing but say how important he is to the team.
The situation might be different next Summer if they do make a push for Kylian Mbappe, but it seems clear that Bale will be staying in Madrid for now.