Bring back Gareth Bale, the galáctico who can win you the Premier League
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Version 0 of 1. According to the kind of people who run po-faced professional writing courses, there are roughly seven types of film plot. These are called things like Voyage And Return and Tragedy And Rebirth, archetypes intended to reflect pretty much all forms of human endeavour, from trying to carry the vacuum cleaner downstairs to an entire adult life spent in a state of creeping low-pressure disappointment. It is a seductively universal idea, and one that can be applied just as easily to sport. Perhaps when Gareth Bale moved to Real Madrid for a world-record transfer fee two summers ago – pretty much the most dramatic event that can happen to any professional footballer – even Bale himself might have imagined his time in Spain panning out along the lines of Rags To Riches or The Quest or even Overcoming the Monster. Except, it hasn’t quite worked out like that. Watching from afar this season, and then in person this week at the Vicente Calderón stadium, it has been tempting to conclude Bale-in-Madrid is instead edging closer to a classic Fish Out Of Water comedy. Bale didn’t play that badly in Real Madrid’s 0-0 draw at Atlético. But it was another mannered, half-throttle, oddly constipated performance. Bale passed to a team-mate 16 times over the full 90 minutes. He missed the game’s best chance. An hour after the final whistle he could be seen wandering through the jagged concrete bowels of the Calderón, meeting the usual friendly halloos and howzits of the quote-hungry British press with a look of dazed disinterest. Related: Ten things to look out for in this weekend's football | Nick Ames and Paul Doyle Which is, at least, consistent with his general demeanour in Spain, where right now our hero seems to be caught at the mid-point in his journey, hemmed in awkwardly by a new and unfamiliar world that seems to disregard his more vital, homespun virtues. In movie terms he’s Danny Zuko in a cardigan going straight to get the girl. He’s Spock among the Vulcans pretending to be all passionless logic, no human heart. He is, for all his medals and fine moments with Madrid, a man who is simply in the wrong place. Not that anything is about to change. Those who know say there is no indication from agent or club of any plans to move this summer. And yet it is increasingly easy to conclude that a move would be the right thing – both for Bale and for his only really likely destination, the Premier League. This goes against the grain as, generally speaking, British players would benefit hugely from playing abroad more, and from sticking it out when things get tough. But Bale is a special case, a very specific kind of footballing superstar blessed with a wonderfully pure kind of one-note genius; who is currently plodding about doing his best to conceal, rather apologetically, the same qualities of gleefully blinkered brilliance that got him there in the first place. This is a mismatch all round. Bale needs to be Bale. And right now Madrid need Bale to be something he’s not, specifically a seasoned, high-craft midfielder, master of the quick combination, the well-grooved passing sequence. Whereas, let’s face it, Bale remains beneath it all a spectacularly well-converted full-back, shunted forward by Harry Redknapp five years ago and told to deploy his unarguable strengths in a bespoke kind of forward-stormtrooper role, a position that has no traditional label but might best be described as Sprinting Happy Run-Shoot Man or Lone Attack Stampede Humiliation. This is the joy and indeed the basic point of Bale. He is a magnificent footballing athlete, a one-man overload able to run and shoot with thrilling power and occasionally to play a beautifully incisive pass. But in a Madrid team that rarely has space to run into, where the first principle in a midfielder is the ability to manipulate the ball, to work tiny pockets of space, he looks no more than a diligent fill-in. This is not to denigrate a player who has within him qualities that are beyond almost any other on the planet. How many footballers could score a goal like that sensational runaway caravan effort in the Copa del Rey final last year, a perfect fusion of strength, speed and fine-grained skill in motion. The problem is that these are qualities Madrid just don’t really need that often, not when even the poorest opposition is too tightly packed, space too compressed to allow such galloping, snorting freedom more than once in a while. Related: How Wayne Rooney saw off Robin van Persie’s Manchester United challenge | Amy Lawrence If Madrid looks wrong for Bale, his absence is clearly also a bad thing for the Premier League. Let’s face it, the world’s richest league doesn’t make many superstars these days. Hence perhaps the current state of balloon-guzzling delirium at the broadly encouraging future potential of Raheem Sterling. But the Premier League did make Bale, a Welshman refined in the English league and with distinctly English gifts. If there is a star vacuum right now, Bale would fill it. Just as any club that could bring him back would surely win the Premier League in his first season. And just as it seems obvious Bale simply needs to find a team where he can be the star, allowed to run and shoot and indulge his basic Bale-ishness; a jewel of the domestic league rather than the current shame-faced shadow-galáctico, all trapped energy and half-glimpsed possibilities. This not a question of admitting defeat. It is simply good career sense for all concerned. There is no doubt that the best teams in Europe would rather face this sad-faced Bale, Bale on the naughty step, than the unbound Premier League version. Perhaps he can adapt over time, or slot in neatly into a post-Ronaldo vacancy as the chief attacking gun. But it is still hard not to miss him a little. The old saying that life is nothing more than a series of moments is never more obvious than in sport. And right now those golden Bale moments, the best of this brilliant, brittle pop-up superstar, are getting a little lost in the haze. |