sport news PETE JENSON: Gareth Bale failed to win over Real Madrid fans, but the criticism ... trends now
Gareth Bale’s brilliance will always be best summed up by one goal – and it isn’t that extraordinary volley past Liverpool keeper Loris Karius in the 2018 Champions League final.
I was at the Spanish Cup final in 2014, and like most of the main stand, briefly lost sight of the Cardiff Express as he ran off the pitch and then back on to it in order to sprint past Barcelona defender Marc Bartra and score the winner five minutes from time.
That was his night. He was up against Neymar who had been Barcelona’s big signing the previous summer. It was a ‘Clasico’ but with a difference because in a neutral venue the stadium was split with each of the Spanish giants filling half of the old 55,000 concrete bowl.
Gareth Bale's extraordinary strike in the 2014 Copa del Rey final best sums up his brilliance
The former Real Madrid star announced his retirement from football at 33 on Monday
With Cristiano Ronaldo injured the emphasis more than ever was on Bale to deliver and he did, at the death, with a goal that even Ronaldo probably wouldn’t have scored.
The Portuguese was soon on the pitch at the final whistle with then Real Madrid assistant coach Zinedine Zidane to celebrate with Bale. It was the 20th goal for him that season and he had answered the critics who had voiced doubts about him earlier in that first campaign.
Only at Real Madrid was that extraordinary goal, in a cup final, against the club’s biggest rivals, not enough to make him a favourite adopted son for life.
At times his critics in Madrid moaned that he was only ever about 'moments', and that in the bread and butter games of too many seasons his was an injury-interrupted contribution. But moments win finals and make memories and Bale’s catalogue of jaw-droppers was more extensive than most.
Bale provided a number of big moments in some crucial games over the years for Madrid
His overhead kick in the 2018 Champions League final was another example of his magic
But Madrid fans never warmed to Bale and often accused him of only providing 'moments'
There’s the volley in Kiev, the header in Lisbon when he put Real Madrid ahead for the first time in the 2014 Champions League final. And his walk to the penalty spot in the shoot-out in the 2016 final in Milan when he had run himself into the ground and could barely make it to the area but summoned the strength to send the ball past Jan Oblak from the spot.
Off the pitch he was a one-off too. I was never entirely sure if the fact that so many Madrid supporters did not take him to heart was something that he didn’t fully
