First for a hundred – Sport – Kommersant

Five-time Champions League winner and three-time Spanish champion with Real Madrid, bronze medalist of the 2016 European Championship with Wales, now former Los Angeles striker 33-year-old Gareth Bale announced his retirement. Her most memorable episode was the transfer from Tottenham to Real Madrid in 2013, when the Welshman became the first player to be sold for more than €100m.

The end of his career, both in club football and in the national team, Gareth Bale announced through social networks. “I am incredibly lucky to be able to fulfill my dream of playing my favorite sport,” the football player wrote in his accounts. “In football, I experienced some of the best moments in my life. I had the opportunity to spend 17 seasons at the highest level, and it is impossible to repeat this in any case, regardless of what awaits me next.

Bale’s announcement, which he says was made after “careful and serious consideration,” was somewhat of a surprise.

Firstly, 33 years old is far from the age limit for football players of this level nowadays. Especially for those who play in the American Major League Soccer (MLS). Secondly, his last contract with Los Angeles, Gareth Bale as a free agent signed relatively recently, in June last year. Although even then there were suggestions that the goal of this move by the once-star striker was to get regular playing practice before the World Cup, where the Wales team got to the first time since 1958.

Bale became a world-class player at London’s Tottenham, where he moved from Southampton in the summer of 2007 at the age of 17. And in 2013, Real Madrid wished to see the high-speed striker in its roster, having laid out a record €101 million for him at that time.

Thus, Bale became the first footballer to be sold for more than €100 million. The amount of the deal seemed overpriced, and it is difficult to say to what extent Bale managed to justify it.

In general, his career at Real Madrid smacks of understatement. Becoming a five-time Champions League winner, a three-time Spanish champion, a two-time Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Super Cup winner and a four-time Club World Cup winner, Bale never turned into a full-fledged leader of the famous club. The reason for this was the highest competition for a place in Real Madrid, as well as injuries that bothered the striker throughout almost his entire career. Not surprisingly, he spent the 2020/21 season at Tottenham Hotspur on loan, and last summer, Real Madrid simply did not renew the contract.

Bale looked more prominent and needed figure in the Wales national team, for which from 2006 to 2022 he played 109 matches and scored 41 goals. And it is probably no coincidence that the first participation of this team in the final part of the World Cup in 64 years was associated with his name. However, in Qatar, the Welsh finished fourth in a group with England, the US and Iran. And here is the bronze of the 2016 European Championship, where at the group stage Bale and his partners defeated the Russian team in the decisive match – 3:0, in the 1/8 finals they beat the team of Northern Ireland – 1:0, and in the quarterfinals they crushed the strong team of Belgium – 3: 1, was a truly historic achievement for Wales.

Evgeny Fedyakov