Tottenham’s remarkable 3-3 draw with West Ham from 3-0 up showed the potency of the Son-Kane partnership Gareth Bale can complement but also what can go awry The scriptwriters can hardly say they did not try. When Gareth Bale weaved in, out and past Angelo Ogbonna with two minutes left of added time, the juiciest of cherries looked ripe for garnishing a Tottenham performance that had lurched from scintillating to skittish. Through he ran, rolling back the years in so doing, and it was the kind of self-made chance he has made a career of gobbling up. Lukasz Fabianski stood still; the romantics held their breaths; the ball went past the post and, well, it was probably not going to...
Wales forward has respect and deep affection for the club and is delighted to be back as fans eagerly await his second debutGareth Bale wanted to leave Tottenham, but not like this. It was the long and stressful summer of 2013, Real Madrid were making their moves, supremely confident that they would get their man, and Team Bale felt they had to harden their exit strategy.Whoever said what to whom is unclear but the upshot was that Bale changed. He had played and scored in Spurs’s opening friendly at Swindon in mid-July and it would be his last involvement for the team. He developed a gluteal injury followed by a foot problem, which ruled him out of the rest of...
The Real Madrid reject should still have explosive pace and looks suited to Harry Kane and José Mourinho’s tacticsFootball loves nothing more than a redemption myth. While there are many who will tell you to never go back, there is more rejoicing in the kingdom of football over one player who returns home than over nine and ninety who never leave.The narrative appeal of Gareth Bale at Tottenham is clear. He was the protagonist of their first side to compete in the Champions League, the explosive forward who scored a hat-trick at San Siro and obliterated Maicon at White Hart Lane, Tottenham’s first global superstar since Paul Gascoigne left for Lazio. Related: Why I can't wait to see Gareth Bale...
The man in the YouTube reels may be seven years older but this is the kind of modern football moment too good not to enjoy As a long-term observer it is always tempting to look out for moments that capture the essence of modern football, those single images that really get its basic weirdness. A personal favourite is the terrifying cube of death built by Qatar 2022 on the banks of the Moskva river at the last World Cup, a beautiful glass and steel exhibition centre intended to generate a thrill of carefree excitement about the next global festival of football, but one that resembled simultaneously a giant haunted cancerous polyp overseen by alien lizard secret service personnel.There are plenty...
Spurs fans need the homecoming nostalgia of someone they saw turn from a boy into a joy of a footballerGareth Bale’s final – well hopefully not final – goal for Tottenham was in the last minute of the last game of the season. Sunderland at White Hart Lane, 19 May 2013. He picked the ball up on the right, cut inside like Arjen Robben and bent the ball into the top left corner from 25 yards past Simon Mignolet. It feels like Bale scored that goal a hundred times that season.As soon as the ball hit the net, Emmanuel Adebayor ran to ask the crowd whether it was enough to get Spurs into the Champions League. It wasn’t. Beaten into...