Real Madrid benefiting from Bale's new role as team facilitator
MADRID --
A year and a fortnight since he made his first appearance as the world's most expensive soccer player, Gareth Bale returns this weekend to Villarreal. He has fond memories of the smallest town on the Spanish Primera Division's landscape. He marked his debut for Real Madrid with a goal. Most of the time since, he has soared.
At El Madrigal, Bale took 37 minutes to score in La Liga for the first time, to help to earn a 2-2 draw. There have been 26 goals since, part of a steady payback for the more than €100 milion Madrid committed to Tottenham Hotspur for the Welshman. The most resonant? Madrid's second in the 4-1 victory in the UEFA Champions League final. The most spectacular? The virtuoso winner in the Copa del Rey final against Barcelona. These are fine souvenirs from a debut campaign, and handy alibis at club where, even high up in the executive ladder, there were several who doubted the club's wisdom investing so heavily in a 24-year-old with an apparent vulnerability to muscle strains, and a marked reliance on his left foot over his right.
The value of Bale, who has evidently benefited in terms of fitness from having had a full preseason with Madrid this summer -- the long negotiations with Spurs last year meant he only signed late in August, so missed out on preparations in 2013-14 -- is increasingly appreciated by his colleagues, too. If his goalscoring record looks impressive, so do the assists; 22 so far in a Madrid jersey, including some very precise crosses with his right foot, a tool that has been more in use than might have been expected.
Twelve months ago, how Bale would fit in seemed a puzzle. And a mischievous idea took hold, in the British and Barcelona-based media, that his arrival had rubbed up Cristiano Ronaldo the wrong way. The massive fee meant Ronaldo had lost his status at the game's most expensive transfer, and there were enough similarities between the players technically -- their speed on the break, their excellence with direct free-kicks -- that a challenge to the team's head-of-hierarchy could be turned around into a narrative of potential conflict.
It never happened. Bale dutifully chorused what everyone else at the club says -- "Cristiano is the best player in the world" -- through his first season. On the pitch, the pair of them developed a fruitful connection.
There are clear benefits to the ying-yang qualities they have as a pair, Ronaldo the right-footed gazelle who likes to attack from the left flank, Bale the swift left-footer adept at cutting inside his marker from the right flank in that with one on each wing, they can stretch opponents and flourish in the counter-attacking game Madrid have emphasised over most of the five years since Ronaldo joined the club. But in the last month, there are signs of a more nuanced approach to Madrid's attacking play, with Ronaldo still the principal focus, and with Bale as important a facilitator as any of the newcomers to the squad.
Ronaldo has scored seven times in his last two matches, and, buoyant after his four goals in the 5-1 win over Elche on Tuesday, described the sense of liberty that has guided him to what is a surreally prolific run of form even by his standards. Against Villarreal he will be seeking, in his fifth Liga start, his tenth goal of the campaign, and he is enjoying his license to define, and redefine his position in attack.
"The coach [Carlos Ancelotti] gives me the freedom to move wherever I feel I can do damage," Ronaldo said. "I don't have a specific position, I can move inside, I can move wide." With Bale as a his complement, Ronaldo now knows there is an alternative target for the kind of classic counter-attack that remains a key Madrid weapon, particularly with passers like Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and James Rodriguez able to deliver the kind of through-balls Bale and Ronaldo likes to run onto. With Bale more and more often the furthest man forward, Ronaldo can explore other routes and spaces. He is spending less time hugging the touchline, more in the central channels of attack.
Ancelotti is happy to see it. "He is the best in the world, by a big margin," said Ancelotti, ahead of the trip to Villarreal, "and we are lucky to have someone of his character, professionalism and leadership." The Madrid head coach again dismissed speculative stories about a possible return by Ronaldo to Manchester United next year. "Nonsense," he called them.
Ronaldo will spearhead the forward line at El Madrigal, the only team selection Ancelotti was happy to confirm on Friday. Ronaldo likes the venue. In four visits there in Liga, he has always scored at least once. Bale should be up front alongside him, continuing to finesse their partnership, and perhaps remembering all the questions that were being asked about him when he first went to Villarreal, just over a year ago. Most of them have been answered positively.
