As Juventus fought out a 1-1 draw with Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in the Champions League, last years champions cut dejected figures void of any inspiration. None more so than Gareth Bale who scored one of the goals in last years victorious final.

As I’ve mentioned previously, things haven’t gone well for the Welshman in the 2014-15 season.

The talk from his agent is that he is isolated in the changing room as he doesn’t speak Spanish, the Real fans boo and jeer him at every poor pass or shot and the Madrid biased media seem to think that he is the player that is holding this current Los Blancos side back.

Last night you could see Gareth Bale desperately trying to fit in and save his Real Madrid career but in the end he may have done little more than seal his fate away from the Spanish giants.

In the early stages Bale constantly looked for the easy pass (preferably to Real saviour Cristiano Ronaldo) and keep it simple, it was clearly a tactic to stop the boo boys from jumping all over him from the start. He did test legendary keeper Gianluigi Buffon on a few occasions but couldn’t get that elusive goal.

As the game drew on and Juve scored their vital equaliser, Bale like the rest of his teammates knew they needed to score to save the tie. So he then tried to force the issue with shots from long range and crosses from deep positions. They didn’t amount to much and you could see other players getting increasingly inpatient, particularly Ronaldo.

By the end as trotted off the field, Bale must have realised that his dream move to Madrid was now on very rocky ground and has turned extremely sour.

Soon enough the Madrid media will be full of his lack of effort.

His passing accuracy was pretty poor at just 71% and the ball was taken off of him eleven times with the Welshman only making one successful tackle throughout the ninety minutes. Although he did have seven shots at goal, the same as all of Juve’s team put together but alas only one of Bale’s was actually on target.

But in truth most of the Real team in the Juve tie under performed.

Iker Casillas produced one world class save but the thirty-three year old is no longer one of the world’s best keepers. He is now prone to making mistakes and no longer instils confidence.

James Rodriguez and Isco didn’t have particularly sensational games, if anything they seemed to go missing for decent sized chunks of it.

Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t seem to have that same movement and electric pace that kills so many teams off. All in all he was quite ordinary last night.

To be fair Real’s superstars struggled as they weren’t a cohesive unit. They lost to Juve because the Italians played and battled as one while the Madrid galacticos seemed to rely on just individual skill to get them through and they couldn’t work together.

Going forward Real Madrid will change things up in the summer. Unless they get a miracle in La Liga then they will be watching on as rivals Barcelona secure their twenty-third league title and possibly their fifth Champions League trophy too.

That will rankle with Madridistas, especially club president Florentino Perez.

You’d imagine, manager Carlo Ancelotti will lose his job, with outgoing Borussia Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp ready to takeover in the summer.

Club captain Iker Casillas will also be heading out the exit door with Manchester United’s David De Gea earmarked as his long term replacement.

But what about the world’s most expensive player; Gareth Bale?

Well before last night I’d have said he would stick it out. But can he really do that?

There seems to be issues between himself and Ronaldo. The Portuguese phenomenon only passed to Bale on two occasions in yesterday’s second leg. Cristiano also seemed to start this witch-hunt against Bale by publicly berating him after the Welsh winger failed to pass to Ronaldo and instead missed a chance. Can the two really rebuild a good understanding?

To be honest I think the Ronaldo stuff has already taken its toll. Even if they can come to some sort of truce (by the way Bale will have little to no issues with Ronaldo, and Ronaldo would react the same way with anyone if it saves him a bit of face) the fans and the Madrid press will take a lot of convincing.

Once again Real Madrid fans abused Gareth as he left the stadium last night. How much of that can one guy take?

Then you look at the fact that big teams like Manchester United and Chelsea will be falling over themselves to bring in a player of Bale’s ability, who on his day can destroy any team.

I get the feeling Gareth Bale would walk back to England at this stage!

Posted on May 14th, 2015 by scott
Filed under: Article