The last time Gareth Bale had a conversation with Zinedine Zidane it was the first week of May with still three games of last season to be played.
Bale had been summoned to Zidane’s office at the club’s Valdebebas training ground and told that he was not part of the manager’s plans. That much he already knew because of the pair’s almost non-existent relationship going back more than a year. What was surprising was that he was also told by Zidane that he would not be picked again.
A few days later Zidane was true to his word when he left Bale out of the game against Villarreal. He then left him out of the last away game of the season and, just to ram home his point, he had him as an unused substitute in the final home match, not even warming up.
With Bale, to Zidane’s displeasure, still at the club at the end of July when Real Madrid played their first friendly of the summer against Bayern Munich the coach had every intention of repeating the scenario of that final home game, leaving him on the bench and not using him.
Bale, anticipating Zidane’s next move, asked to not even get changed and took his seat in the stand. Zidane said in his post-match press conference that if Bale could leave within the next 24 hours it would be better for everyone. Bale’s agent Jonathan Barnett branded the coach a disgrace for his comments.
The dispute was no longer just about being left out, it was about being treated as a club might treat a no-good troublemaker who had never contributed anything positive to the team, much less won 13 trophies. Bale’s close friends and representatives are, above all, bemused by Zidane’s attitude towards the player. They insist there has never been any one key incident, just a freezing over of coach-to-player relations.
Their fall-out has been called the cold war in Spain. Bale’s people point out that Zidane was manager in October 2016 when the club gave Bale his contract until 2022. They now wonder if the relationship has broken down so much that Zidane would rather lose without Bale than win with him. Club president Florentino Perez, it seems, is nowhere near as keen for Bale to leave as his coach is. At least that is the conclusion Bale draws from the fact that his move to China was aborted at the last minute.
The deal — which would have seen Bale off the wage bill but not generate any transfer fee — was not rejected by Perez when it reached him to sign off. Instead he had accepted the terms and then there was a change of mind at the last minute.
