Sport
Gareth Bale future unclear after Euro 2020
The dust may finally be settling but the emotions are still raw and painful. Given how the hype train returned with great ferocity ahead of Wales’ delayed Euro 2020 campaign, five years on from their heroic trail to the semi finals in France, exiting as they did with such a flat, meek performance against Denmark in the last 16 was tough to take. Gareth Bale, their talisman, felt the full force of Euro 2020 more than most.
But so much has changed in the time since Welsh football returned to the major international tournament stage with a roar and a bang. Back then, everything came together. Chris Coleman, who had taken the manager’s job in the most difficult of circumstances after Gary Speed’s tragic death in November 2011, galvanised everyone.
There aren’t many more societies more outwardly patriotic than the Welsh and Coleman was able to harness that passion, plus a nation’s grief, and use it as fuel in the name of their former boss, building on the foundations he had put in place. Bale and Aaron Ramsey were the two players who could lay claim to world class status — it was absolutely unquestionable in the former’s case — and they led from the front. Ashley Williams, a mountain of a man and a bastion making a last stand, did the same from the back. It was the perfect cocktail.
There was no fear and a single aim; to do Wales proud. Without anything to compare it to, what was to stop them? It felt like nothing and that is the truth. Not Belgium, whom Hal Robson-Kanu dispatched with the greatest goal he’ll ever score. Wales were carried by love and freedom, inspired by Bale more than anyone and remembering Speed as they went. And then they ran into a powerful and clinical wall. Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugal side ended the dream before going on to fulfil their own.
This time it was different. Coleman had gone, replaced by Ryan Giggs but a charge of assaulting two women ensured that he couldn’t take charge this summer. Gareth Bale, then Ronaldo’s teammate at Real Madrid at the height of his powers, came into Euro 2020 at a crossroads. Unwanted and discarded in Spain while he runs down his mouthwateringly-expensive contract, he was sent on loan back to Tottenham Hotspur in 2020-21, the club who first nurtured his ventures into superstardom.
Their were glimpses of his talent but, at 31 and after a spate of injuries, he wasn’t as explosive as he used to be and it didn’t feel like the homecoming which had been romanticised. His motivation, questioned since unveiling the infamous ‘Wales. Golf. Madrid’ banner on international duty, is still well up for debate.
Williams wasn’t there and has been watching the Euros in the relative comfort of the BBC studios after retirement, while Ramsey, now 30 and on the wane slightly, has suffered from a difficult couple of seasons with Juventus. Perhaps the biggest hurdle which lay in front of Wales, though, was the benchmark set before.
They’d tasted the semi finals in their first major tournament since 1958, meaning years and generations of hurt were put to bed in just a few weeks. They rode a storm of surprise; nobody saw them coming and when they did, their momentum was too much. Everyone loves an underdog, and a continent was captivated.
Robert Page stepped into the void left by Giggs’ absence but it was after the Lord Mayor’s show. Nobody realistically expected a repeat performance yet, at the same time, it would be difficult to beat and therefore difficult to get the same feelings of raw ecstasy. On that front, things weren’t helped by travel restrictions due to COVID in a tournament which forced them to hop from Baku to Rome and then Amsterdam without much backing from their loyal supporting legion. They also lost their standing as the neutrals darlings when Denmark, who outclassed them in every department last week, bounced back so impressively from the horror they faced with Christian Eriksen’s collapse earlier in the tournament.
Gareth Bale fronted up after Wales’ Euro 2020 exit but stormed off when asked about his Wales future, which had been up in the air. He did clarify later by saying he would play for his country for as long as he plays football. Bale’s admission, though, may not be for as long as it sounds.
For long periods, even at Spurs last season, he didn’t look interested in football. Madrid treated him poorly and he was hung out to dry and chastised by the Spanish press with minimal support from teammates and staff let alone anyone else. But a lack of cultural integration perhaps suggested football wasn’t his be all and end all.
Golf is a sport he loves and perhaps his focus is shifting. Every footballer wants to be loved, and the fact that the adulation has dried up may have led to his passion going the same way. He’s won everything in club football and his next move isn’t offering much by way of excitement.
Wales has long been his focus and that is no bad thing. He raises his game whenever he wears the shirt and has never put anything ahead of that. Despite injuries robbing him of the physical prowess and pace he had at his peak, Gareth Bale is still comfortably their standout player, something that showed at Euro 2020. If he can keep that focus, he’ll be an asset for the Red Dragons for years to come. Unfortunately, the outlook on his club career is not so clear.
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