Scholes congratulates Giggs on Wales reaching World Cup amid boss confusion
Had Ukraine defeated Wales on Sunday, Bale may have opted for retirement, or the semi- retirement, of Major League Soccer.
So give Bale a one-year deal and you might get a couple of months at full pelt, but as we get close to the World Cup in November, a player who will be more desperate than most to avoid an injury before Qatar.
And after the tournament, a player ready for his pipe and slippers or — more accurately — his five-iron and golf spikes.
Three managerial greats — Jose Mourinho, Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti — have all been reluctant to play Bale in recent seasons. Were they all wrong?
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There will be some in the Newcastle hierarchy who would love to snap up Bale as a marquee signing for the Geordie Arabia project but is the supremely- sensible Eddie Howe likely to concur?
A return to Tottenham seems impossible under the demanding Antonio Conte.
Might his first club Southampton fancy a stab?
Bournemouth, under Bale’s former Spurs team-mate Scott Parker?
But any of them would be grappling with exactly the same issues.
Spending a weekend in Cardiff for Wales’ play-off victory over Ukraine was to experience a cultish hysteria around Bale.
While the skipper’s free-kick led to Andriy Yarmolenko’s own-goal winner, and he played with energy and passion, this Welsh victory was not truly about Bale.
Bale has got used to life on the bench at Real MadridCredit: Getty
Burnley’s second-choice keeper Wayne Hennessey had the game of his life, while Ben Davies and Neco Williams were magnificent in defence — and substitute Brennan Johnson was arguably the liveliest Welsh attacking player.
But the mutual love-in between Bale and his homeland is extraordinarily strong.
A succession of Wales managers are adamant that he is an outstanding individual player who fully buys into the team collective and that the national team is where he feels a sense of belonging, especially given his fractious relationship with Madrid.
Recalling his sicknote for Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics, the Wales fans love to sing: ‘Viva Gareth Bale, he had a bad back, f*** the Union Jack, Viva Gareth Bale’.
That dodgy pull-out is long-forgotten elsewhere in Britain — but in Wales it is used to add to a growing sense of Welsh nationalism.
Wales will be dangerous group-stage opponents for England in Qatar — the first-ever all-British match at a World Cup finals.
Gareth Southgate would have preferred to avoid a domestic tear-up. He was wary of the unique atmosphere around such matches before last summer’s Euros clash with Scotland. And he was right, as that goalless draw was comfortably England’s worst performance of the tournament.
The England boss will also know that Bale — who scored against England at Euro 2016 — will be a dangerous opponent, given the right preparations.
But where will those preparations be, given that Bale stated this weekend that it is ‘very unlikely’ that he would go to Qatar as a free agent?
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The one club to have gone public about their desire to sign Bale is Cardiff City, where he would be afforded hero status, boost gate receipts and merchandising income, as well as being allowed to pick and choose matches in the grind of a Championship season.
For while Qatar may afford Bale a glorious swansong with Wales, his days as an elite club footballer are surely in the past.
MUST BE KIDDING
SO the children of Hungarian racists turned out to be racist and booed England’s players taking the knee. Who’d have imagined it?
If Hungary – or England, or any other nation – are to be punished for fan misbehaviour – then behind-closed-doors must mean behind-closed-doors.
Allowing 30,000 schoolkids in – or even the couple of thousand expected at Molineux on Saturday for England’s ‘behind closed doors’ Nations League fixture with Italy – is a farce.
But then this is UEFA and, as anyone who was in Paris for the Champions League Final can attest, farce is simply what they do.
NATIONS PLEAS
THE Nations League is a fundamentally good idea. It provides competitive fixtures instead of friendlies.
And when England are winning in it, we do consider them to be competitive.
It is the staging of four Nations League fixtures at the end of a congested domestic season which caused Kevin De Bruyne to criticise the competition as “unimportant”, amid fears about burnout.
International sides need matches — it is the club game which is bloated.
The only answer to this mess is less club football. Good luck with that one, Kev.
GOD, IT’S SO SILLY
THERE was uproar on social media, and if there wasn’t uproar it wouldn’t be social media, after Trent Alexander-Arnold refused to sing God Save The Queen before England’s loss in Hungary.
After four days of parades and bunting and Paddington Bear (who’d be heading off to Rwanda if he’d arrived from Darkest Peru now), it’s worth remembering many of us are able to feel pride and joy in being English, while not wanting to sing about a hereditary monarchy.
BAT’S IT JOE
FOR two years or more, it felt as though the England captaincy was an unnecessary burden on Joe Root — and that Ben Stokes, an obvious natural leader, should have succeeded him.
So it was heartening to see that switch pay off in the First Test victory over New Zealand at Lord’s — with Root playing one of the innings of his life to secure a rare England victory over the world champions in Stokes’ first match in charge.
Root, a hugely likeable bloke, a magnificent batsman, but pretty average skipper, admits he had an ‘unhealthy relationship’ with the captaincy for some time.
After he became only the second Englishman to reach 10,000 Test runs, we might now reasonably expect the Yorkshireman, 31, to have a damned good go at surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 15,921.
BUM STEER
ONE of my favourite things about a day at the cricket has always been bumping into David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd for a chat about the usual subjects.
Such as locating the best real ale pubs in the vicinity, the fortunes of Accrington Stanley FC and the music of Half Man Half Biscuit.
And one of the best things about watching cricket on Sky was the gentle humour of the former England coach, which gave their coverage a welcome change of pace.
Sky dropped a ricket by axing Lloyd.
Having also lost the wonderful Michael Holding, to retirement, and the amusing Rob Key, to his new role as England supremo, they need old Bumble back.
