Zinedine Zidane has dropped two major hints that Gareth Bale will be brought in from the cold to face Liverpool in the Champions League final, according to the Daily Mail.
The newspaper claim that the Real Madrid manager first selected Bale in a team for Saturday’s 2-2 La Liga finale against Villarreal “that looked very much like a dress rehearsal selection for Kiev”.
Zidane then praised Bale, 28, for refusing to accept his place in the attacking pecking order while he was out of the team.
“He has never given up,” Zidane said, as quoted by the Mail. “He has kept working hard on the training ground and If there is a difference now it’s the goals that he is scoring recently because he has been on a great run. He is happy and full of confidence on the pitch.”
OPINION
Anyone who watched Bale’s stunning recent equaliser against Barcelona will wonder how on earth he isn’t in the Real starting XI, despite the attacking options open to Zidane. Sure, he has suffered from serious injury problems this season, but his record stands up to scrutiny. In 38 matches in all competitions, Bale has scored 19 goals and supplied eight assists. In 26 league fixtures, the former Tottenham man has netted 16 times, including five in his last four matches. Those are the statistics of a red-hot goal machine who leads the line week in, week out, not a fringe player who no-one expects to be in the starting XI for the biggest match of the season. Or, make that, who no-one expected to start just a few weeks back, when he was omitted from the knockout ties against Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and Bayern Munich, when the likes of Isco and Lucas Vazquez were preferred to him, not to mention Marco Asensio, Karim Benzema and, of course, Cristiano Ronaldo. Perhaps Zidane’s thinking for the Kiev showdown is changing. The suggestions are that Bale could now be brought in from the cold for the marquee fixture of the season. With or without Bale, the Champions League final betting odds have Real Madrid as 6/5 favourites for the trophy.
