Real Madrid: Bale Is Back!
By Ben Sundock
The headline is no lie ladies and gentlemen, Gareth Bale is back and is healthy enough to play Saturday as Real Madrid host Espanyol. This is big news for a Real Madrid team that has been without their star right winger for 86 days now since injuring his ankle at Sporting Lisbon on November 22nd.
Ever since the match with Celta Vigo was postponed just a couple of weekends ago, Los Blancos have been getting key injured players back in droves. James Rodriguez, Luka Modric, Pepe, and Marcelo all returned from missing time following the postponement of the match and now, just the day before they host Espanyol, manager Zinedine Zidane has confirmed that the stud Welshman, Gareth Bale, is healthy enough to play Saturday.
At the beginning of the week, Zidane publicly claimed that he did not want to take “unnecessary risks” with Bale but hinted at the winger featuring in the lineup against either Napoli on Wednesday, or tomorrow against Espanyol.
The news of his return to the lineup this weekend for the 21st La Liga match of the season came
via Bale’s personal Facebook page
as Bale posted prior to training this afternoon:
Zidane told a news conference on Friday, “Bale will be in the squad and the idea is for him to have some minutes. He’s excited to be with us and we’re happy to have him, although we still have two or three who have injuries. Nearly everyone is ready.”
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“Bale is an important player. We know his quality, his speed, the damage he can cause the opposition. I’m happy to have him but he’s even happier to be back with the team and ready to play.”
The boost of having Bale healthy doesn’t only help Real Madrid it also greatly helps Bale’s national team, Wales, in their pursuit of World Cup qualification as they have big games coming up in March against Ireland.
While it will be great to see Gareth back in a uniform and on the sideline to start the game Saturday, don’t expect to see him start or play more than half an hour because as Zidane himself said, the club is trying to ease him back in without pushing him too hard.
In training at the Valdebebas earlier today, in the 15 minutes the press were allowed to watch the training session, Bale looked happy to be back competing with the first team players and moved fluidly around the circle as the players did the “El Rondo” exercise.
Having Bale back will certainly bring confidence back to Ronaldo and Karim Benzema as both players have struggled as of late to find the back of the net and with Bale back, more of the defense’s attention will be drawn away from CR7 and the Big Benz and onto the Welsh Dragon, who is always a threat to score. We all know what he’s capable of: