Gareth Bale is set to leave Real Madrid at the end of the season after head coach Carlo Ancelotti gave a strong indication that the Welshman’s time at the club is coming to an end.
Having lit up the Premier League with stellar performances throughout the 2012-13 season, Bale left Tottenham Hotspur to join Real the following summer for a fee that reportedly stood at just over €100 million, setting a new world record at the time.
Since then, things haven’t always gone the way the forward would have liked them to. Injuries frequently plagued his time at the Santiago Bernabeu, and he was rarely counted on by Zinedine Zidane, who had two separate spells in charge of the team, lasting almost five years all told.
Nonetheless, Bale’s contribution to Real’s successes in the last decade can hardly be exaggerated. He scored some absolutely vital goals in a number of finals, not least the spectacular brace against Liverpool in Kyiv which saw Los Blancos lift the 13th Champions League trophy in the club’s history, or the 85th-minute winner he bagged against arch-rival Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final in 2014.
All in all, Bale has represented Real on 255 occasions in all competitions so far, scoring 106 goals and contributing 67 assists.
However, the role of the Wales captain at the club has been dwindling for a long time now, and he spent the second half of last season on loan at his former club, Spurs. With his contract set to expire, there’s practically no chance Real will offer him a new one, given that he’s played only four matches in all competitions (all La Liga) this term.
“I speak with him just like I try and speak with everyone else, trying to get the best out of them, listen to their problems, and that’s it,” Ancelotti told the press.
“As I said, the personal relationship with him and the other players is good, I can’t blame him for anything.
“As long as a player is serious, professional and respects the rules and the people he works with, our personal relationship will be good.
“His contract is about to end and it could be that he didn’t have much motivation in recent times.
“Now he’s feeling good, and he wants to end his time here as he deserves, because Bale has brought many titles to this club.”
