Bale, at € 88,000 per minute

The last time Gareth Bale played for Real Madrid half Spain was still on the beach. The Welshman has disappeared in such a way from the dynamics of the Whites’ team that this season he has played more for Wales (232 ‘) than for Ancelotti (193’) and so on. Nor does he have a return date in 2022. It causes muscular discomfort since the return in the New Year and because of them he was absent from the trip to Getafe and also will do it from the visit to the Alcoyano this Wednesday. The club understands that he can be called up against Valencia, but with Gareth it is very difficult to predict the competitive high because he is a footballer who, as soon as he feels something strange muscularly, he immediately puts on the handbrake.

A caution that together with its different injuries He is assuming that every time he is seen with Madrid, and the last one was on August 28 against him Betis (0-1), that stake is worth its weight in gold. More than in sports, for the economic. In the contractual progression, his salary this last season of commitment between the Welshman and Madrid is 17 million euros net. If we take a calculator, for each of the minutes he has played so far Bale has pocketed 88,000 euros. Madrid, which is charged with the corresponding taxes, gets almost double.

Especially the predisposition to return of the attacker when it is Gales the one that claims you. It happened in the November break, where the situation was bizarre. Although Ancelotti advanced cautiously and in the face of repeated questions about the 16 White who was waiting for Bale “for the Rayo game” (November 6), Wales summoned him before receiving the medical discharge of the knee injury that had him stopped since September, he did not finally enter the list against the Rayo team and He only returned to training 48 hours after being able to leave with his country. There he expected to play his 100th game. He scored the milestone, but He only lasted 45 minutes and his federation reported a new injury, again in his problematic soleus. Bale did not even return to Valdebebas, he preferred to stay to watch the second game of his country as one more spectator. Since then he has been out with Madrid, it’s been 129 days. Not even in the 2019-20 season, when Zidane completely threw in the towel with him, had he played so little. At this point he had accumulated 847 minutes. Now is the twentieth in participation of this template, just ahead of players also ostracized like Isco, Mariano and Vallejo. Fewer games, almost, than controversies led by his agent, who without going any further this season called Madrid fans “disgusting”.

And the Welsh play-off is coming …

While he returns or not to play with Madrid, Bale’s Welsh urgency may be back on the scene shortly, from March 24 to 29, when his country will play the play-off for the World Cup. Few in Valdebebas doubt that he will do what is in his power and even more for being captaining Wales at that time. Right between the next Clásico against Barça (March 20) and the quarterfinals of the Champions League (April 4 or 5) if Madrid eliminates PSG before. There is still time for that, but the evidence is that since September, Ancelotti has had to shoot as right-handed wingers Rodrygo, Hazard, Asensio, Lucas Vázquez and even the castillista Peter Federico while there was no trace of the highest paid footballer on the squad.