Bale: the Real deal

Should a transfer go ahead, teams facing Madrid next year will line up against the truly frightening prospect of Bale on one wing, Ronaldo on the other (Stefan Wermuth)

Young Welshman is poised to become the worlds costliest player, though if he goes to the Bernabeu he will not be top dog Ian Hawkey, The Sunday Times Published: 4 August 2013 In with a shout: Jose Mourinho wanted to sign Gareth Bale for Real Madrid. I asked the club to sign him last summer but it wasnt possible, he said. Carlo Ancelotti [the new coach] will know how to get the very best out of himShould a tranfer go ahead, teams facing Madrid next year will line up against the truly frightening prospect of Bale on one wing, Ronaldo on the other (Stefan Wermuth) As Real Madrid prepare to write the multiple zeros and commas on the games biggest transfer cheque for Gareth Bale, their head coach, Carlo Ancelotti, has been carefully rolling out the red carpet for the man whose reign as footballs costliest footballer looks, suddenly, finite. Cristiano Ronaldo, all 80m of him, is seldom embarrassed by any superlative and the world record price tag may be a piece of bling he would miss carrying around.

After Madrids pre-season fixture against LA Galaxy, Ancelotti took press questions. Did he care to say how negotiations were going on the 80m-plus bid for Bale? Only to confirm the Spanish clubs interest in the Welshman, who did not travel with Spurs for their friendly in Monaco last night. Ancelotti preferred to reference the 24-carat superstar around whom, Bale or no Bale, his game-plan with his new team would be shaped, the phenomenon who gets to write his own rules. Cristiano has to play in whatever position he wants to, the Italian said. He denied suggestions that, with new options in the attacking third of the field in the Madrid squad, Ronaldo has been asked to occupy a more central, spearhead role. Cristiano is the one who has to decide his best position, added Ancelotti. I am not going to move him. Why would he? Cristiano is comfortable where he is playing at the moment. And Madrid are comforted by his being there. You dont fiddle with a formula that yields 181 goals from 175 La Liga and Champions League appearances. Constructing a high pedestal for Ronaldo, telling him that he picks his own position, is pragmatic. Ancelottis comments were chosen to coincide with the latest phase of negotiations for Bale, which Madrid are supremely confident will succeed. Ancelotti knows that Bales arrival from Tottenham would be the headline deal of the summer; it would billboard the player with the uniquely ostentatious razzle Madrid reserve for their biggest recruits and Bale would be the first so-called Galactico, to use the term that gained currency in Perezs first presidency at the turn of the millennium, to arrive at the club since the extravagant 2009 spend that transported Ronaldo to Spain. The Italian also recognises how hierarchies operate at Real Madrid and the singularity of Ronaldo, aka CR7, in that environment. Ronaldo is not the chief shop steward in the Bernabeu dressing room but he is its star. He is not inoculated against fits of self-regard or symptoms of envy. He requires certain indulgences. Sometimes he demands them. Less than 12 months ago, having just inspired the deposing of Barcelona as Spanish champions, Ronaldo announced that he felt sad at Madrid, leaving his entourage to filter out from that studied declaration a series of diagnoses for that sadness. It had to do with what he felt was a lack of institutional support from his club. Ronaldo felt that Real Madrid had put in less effort to gilding his candidacy for the Ballon dOr than Barcelona had put into Lionel Messis. Ronaldo needs his pedestal set high. Indeed, he expects it set high. Ronaldo is also aware of suggestions that a brilliant Bale at Madrid might, by 2014 or beyond, make the Portugueses departure more viable for the club, though he would set

most of his own terms for that exit and by far the likeliest scenario is the pair coinciding in white for at least a season. For Ancelotti, that is a prospect far more exhilarating than vexing, though how to gain the most from a footballer such as Bale, whose game is still evolving, will require thought. The evidence of pre-season is that Ancelottis Madrid may favour more elaboration in their build-up than his predecessor, Jose Mourinho, where Ronaldos counterattacking threat, allied with Xabi Alonsos distribution over long range, were fundamental. Mourinho had also wanted Bale at his Madrid. I asked the club to sign him last season but it wasnt possible, said Mourinho, who moved to Chelsea in June after three seasons at the Bernabeu. He would have suited my Real Madrid team. It looks like he will be going there this summer and he will work with an experienced coach, Carlo Ancelotti, who will know how to get the best out of him. In Mourinhos vision, that would have meant Bale providing a threat mirroring that of Ronaldo, the Portuguese coming off one wing, the Welsh flyer off the other and cutting inside. Bale, once a left-back, happens to have matured in an era when the inside-out winger has become just about the games most fashionable attacking device that is, the left-footer whose starting post is wide on the right or, vice-versa, the wide attacking player with a preference for his right foot who takes off from the left. Ronaldo, who likes to attack from wide left, helped bring the role into vogue, as did Lionel Messi in his first four or five seasons as a senior Barcelona player, operating from the right flank of a front three. Bayern Munich, the European champions, have thrived on the way Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery duel with opponents and usually shift infield, onto to their stronger foot, for the final pass or shot. Under Mourinho, the right flank of Madrids 4-2-3-1 was mostly the domain of Angel di Maria, who has a sharp turn of pace and a precise left foot but fewer of the all-round assets of Bale. The German international Mesut Ozil has also operated there but is more consistently effective in the centre of the pitch. Bale has a claim to that sort of role, too, but it is territory already well staffed at Madrid: by Ozil, by Isco, the 25m signing from Malaga, or, potentially, by Luka Modric, the former Spurs player who Ancelotti insists will not be leaving this summer. Modric would be a welcome friend and ally through Bales first weeks. Bale would also have a fellow Briton to confer with in his mother tongue in Paul Clement, who is one of Ancelottis assistant coaches. Another is Zinedine Zidane, once the most expensive footballer in the world and the last so-called Galactico signing to deliver to president

Perez the return he most wants from his big spends, the European Cup. It has not been won by Madrid since Zidanes volley at Hampden Park captured the prize in 2002. Bale would bear a special weight of expectation. He is a fantastic player, said Mourinho, but he will now have the pressure on him of showing whether or not he is worth the investment.