SOCIAL media tee-heed at Gareth Bale for a horror penalty miss – but he had the final laugh.
Golf fan Bale’s spectacular spot-kick fail in Wales’ 2-0 win over Turkey sparked memes investigating where his “lob wedge” effort eventually landed – with the moon and Mars on the list, and Gary Lineker tweeting ‘proof’ that the ball was in his back garden.
But either side of his penalty blooper the Real Madrid misfit provided brilliant assists for Aaron Ramsey and Connor Roberts to put the Dragons on the brink of reaching the Euro 2020 knockout stages.
Bale still received an online onslaught as viewers pitched in after a spot-kick that almost climbed to the cloud nine that Wales are now on.
Golfing analogies included: “You’d have thought with all the golf Bale plays he would know how to use a putter than a golf wedge.”
But most of the banter involved guesswork over the final resting place for his spot-kick, with many jibes out of this world.
In one ‘photo’ an astronaut was pictured on the moon alongside the words: “The ball from Gareth Bale’s penalty miss has just landed.”
And a question many astronomers might soon be asking was posed above another stellar image: “Mysterious ball on Mars. Where did it come from?”
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Practical advice for ex-Tottenham attacker Bale also flooded in.
One man was pictured taking a penalty with a golf club, with the words: “Why didn’t Bale just do this?”
One thing’s sure, though. Golf nut Bale will have walked off at the end of the night a hole lot better – after Wales’ superb victory.
Bale, who apologised for blazing the penalty over the bar in Baku, said: “We’re in a fantastic position now. If you’d offered us four points at the start we would have bitten your hand off.
“Of course, we’ll have to wait and see what happens but we’re happy.
“I am absolutely delighted with the win.”
He added: “I got under the ball and it wasn’t a nice feeling.
“In the circle after the game, I made a funny joke and apologised for missing the pen.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk