Ramsey and Trippier must win one thing Bale hasn’t on European adventures… fans’ love
THE black-and-white stats ensure the matter is beyond reasonable doubt.
With four European Cups and nine more trophies as a Real Madrid player, Gareth Bale is the most successful British footballing export of all-time.
Then there was the evidence of our eyes, in Kiev in May last year, when Bale improvised his acrobatic bicycle kick to settle a classic Champions League final against Liverpool — laying bare the nonsense of Zinedine Zidane having started him on the bench.
Yet should Bale leave the Bernabeu in the coming weeks, there will be little fondness for the Welshman among the Madridistas.
In Britain, we tend to think of this as typical arrogance and ingratitude from the snootiest of football clubs.
But really there should be little surprise they have never taken Bale to their hearts in the dressing room or on the terraces.
In six years in the Spanish capital, he has never gained a decent grasp of the language and never truly integrated with team-mates, with whom he is known as ‘The Golfer’ because of his all-consuming hobby.
This doesn’t make Bale a bad person — he certainly isn’t.
He’s a polite, if rather shy, bloke who enjoys the quiet life, despite playing for the most showbiz football club on Earth.
But while footballers often talk about being ‘not being the sort of player who’s happy to sit on the bench and pick up his wages’, Bale — who turned 30 seven days ago — now does seem to be that sort of player.
When those wages are £600,000- per-week and Zidane has clearly decided to move on without Bale, there is bound to be frustration at an injury-prone player who has seemingly fallen out of love with football, refusing to go.
Yes, Bale has a long-term Bernabeu deal but, equally, nobody on either side of the fence in football believe contracts bring any moral obligation towards long-term loyalty.
And when Cristiano Ronaldo vacated his role as Real’s main man last summer, Bale was unable to fill the void.
A £1million weekly wage in China might tempt him — but it would prove Bale’s priority is finance rather than football.
So now, as two more elite British footballers — Aaron Ramsey and Kieran Trippier — head to Europe, both seem determined to learn from Bale’s experiences.
Ramsey, always one of the more articulate Premier League footballers, made the effort to speak Italian at his introductory press conference and is said to be embracing life in Turin.
Of course, a whopping weekly wage of £400,000 helped make up 28-year-old Ramsey’s mind after he’d run down his Arsenal contract.
But the way he spoke about his great Welsh forebear, Juventus legend John Charles, suggested a man with a genuine desire not to be seen as another overseas player just passing through.
Trippier, who coined the phrase ‘not bad for a Bury lad’ when he was the best right-back at last year’s World Cup, somehow seems a less likely ‘man of the world’.
Perhaps that’s because his father famously flies the flag of St George from a large pole in the back garden of his council house during tournaments.
But Trippier sought out his move to Atletico Madrid when he might have earned more by staying in the Premier League.
He is also cramming in language lessons and is said to be determined to throw himself into Spanish life.
Trippier suffered a poor season at Tottenham and lost his place in the England squad, due to the emergence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, with Aaron Wan-Bissaka also pushing hard at right-back.
But at 28 and with England boss Gareth Southgate actively encouraging players to move abroad, Trippier sees his switch to Atletico as the perfect way to kick-start his career.
Jadon Sancho, Ademola Lookman and other young English kids have headed to the Bundesliga to escape the bottleneck of opportunity caused by foreign domination of the Premier League.
But Trippier and Ramsey have made fascinating moves to great European powerhouses, while close to their peak — both turn 29 this year.
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Their contemporary, England left-back Danny Rose, favours a similar move to a top-ranking European club, now Spurs have put him up for sale and Paris Saint-Germain are keen, with Juve also linked.
All of these players would dearly love to win one European Cup, never mind Bale’s four.
Yet they will also be craving the one thing Bale could never win — genuine affection.