BENCHING BALE IS THE QUESTION WITH ONE ANSWER

Photo by Andrew Dowling [andrewdowlingphotography.co.uk]

Megan Feringa

A baby goat is called a kid, according to a cursory Google search. The consensus on that is pretty scientific. National Geographic vets it. 

For an old goat, the scientific consensus is less absolute. Google swiftly slips away from the Animal Kingdom and into the sad but inevitable realm of the ageing human being. Some results are kinder than others: Venerable, elder, legendary. They suggest, at the very least, an air of dignity. Others veer in a wildly different direction: Fossil. Relic. Hoary. Bygone. 

Football has yet to establish its version of a definition, but if Poland manager Czesław Michniewicz were to apply the term, Robert Lewandowski would cut a convincing archetype. “Fantastyczny [fantastic]” is the word he used. Lewandowski played fantastyczny. Lewandowski had a fantastyczny assist. Poland need to provide him more assists, that is “their task”, as the 52-year-old phrased it. Carve out more space, give him the right conditions. Because if you create half a chance, Lewandowski will take it. He doesn’t need to score to prove his worth. He’s a world class player. Still a GOAT. Period. 

Against Wales on Sunday night, Lewandowski looked it. His movements were purposeful and powerful. His first touches were the stuff of clouds. In the 84th minute, he burned Joe Rodon, a player a decade younger than him, down the left touchline. And he proved no tactic was too base for even the most legendary of the game. 

In a football milieu where every night sees a new ageing legend seemingly edging more and more ingloriously into the twilight, the 34-year-old Poland international was the antithesis. On the same pitch as 33-year-old Gareth Bale, the contrast was stark. 

Up until the final five minutes, Bale’s most inspiring moment was his unnerved ability to tie his hair back into its infamous top knot while staring down a Poland centre half hard enough to put him off from passing the ball past him. In pulses, a crisp pass promised to resuscitate the night but the promises never saw themselves through. Bale’s blunted pace and fitness are of no shock value, but contrasted so flagrantly to Lewandowski, they were somehow more distressing. 

Make no mistake. If Bale’s header in the dying embers of the match had found its target, we wouldn’t be talking about this. Or if his free kick in the 92nd minute had found the back of the net, as his free kicks have done twice before just this year, we’d be writing another ode waxing lyrical to a man who has, time after time, defied every odd. 

But Bale’s header didn’t find its target. It found the bar and rattled it. His free kick didn’t incite bedlam. The odds out-odded the man this time. To be fair to Bale, this was the first game the Wales captain played through its duration since the goalless World Cup qualifier against Estonia at home last September (Bale was substituted in the 90th minute against Austria in March). To believe that Bale would summon some magical 90+ minutes and save Wales for another time was wishful. 

But a magical moment? That was, arguably, not nearly as wishful, and fans cannot be blamed for thinking that there was at least one more moment left in the Bank of Bale. That’s how the last two years of his career has panned out anyway: by magical moments, neatly distinguishing the final chapters of Bale’s career, each one available for endless replay in 15-second Twitter clips from the FAW’s official account. 

That was the thinking of Robert Page. Page acknowledged Lewandowski for what he was: “One of the best strikers in the world. Half a chance you give him and there’s a goal.” 

His praise was less effusive for Bale. Instead, Page opted for pragmatism. To compete at this level, Wales need all of their players available and fit. Wales didn’t have that. There was no Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey, Harry Wilson, Ethan Ampadu and Chris Mepham and only, really, half a Bale. While the strength in depth is getting stronger, the chasm of quality separating the starting XI and the “second string” is not something Page attempted to gloss over. Relegation is “disappointing”. It’s also a “reality check”. 

What was also a reality check was Bale’s fitness levels. Despite Bale’s declaration that he was “fitter than ever” on Saturday, Page admitted otherwise. In terms of minutes, Bale is at roughly 35-40. They need him at back-to-back 90s. Should Bale have played the full match last night? “I didn’t want him to,” Page stated. “But it’s Gareth Bale. You have a potential free kick in the 92nd minute. You don’t want anyone else taking it.” 

Which is the point. 

There’s no use denying that Bale isn’t a facsimile of himself. Bale will be the first to admit it. Frustration rankled his face as he stretched but failed to reach a pass from Joe Morrell on a counter that he would’ve latched onto with unfettered ease two years earlier. In that same alternative universe, his runs across the box are timed to perfection. His header loops in. 

Any question of Bale’s right to start is a legitimate one. Is it better to have 30 minutes of scintillating Bale at the end or 90 minutes of a watered down version? But any variation of this has only one answer: it’s Gareth Bale.

Forget, for a moment, the reality that is Bale’s getting Wales to a first World Cup in 64 years. Not in the way that Chris Gunter or Jonny Williams got Wales to a World Cup, but how Bale pulled Wales there with his inhuman proclivity to alter the course of a football match in one fell sweep of his foot time after time. 

For that alone, a starting position in Wales’ World Cup opener against the United States of America is a nonstarter. Yes, the glue around Bale was pivotal. This week has only cast a harsher light on the grim reality that Wales sans Ramsey, Allen and Davies suffers exponentially. 

Yet, throughout the second half, the sense that a magical moment was not too far out of reach lingered. Recency bias deserves some credit here, but also the undeniable factor that this is Bale. 

How Bale features in a starting XI deserves consideration. Page admitted that Bale enjoys playing behind Kieffer Moore in a more creative, deep-lying pocket, and against Poland, Wales looked their most threatening when Moore and Bale had the opportunities to combine. There is no faulting what was actually missing throughout the match: the killer ball. Without Ramsey and Allen, the ball was unlikely to come. Page hailed Morrell and Dylan Levitt for deputising, but admitted that neither offered enough bravery going forward. 

Any inclusion will require sacrifices, one of which could likely be Dan James. James’ lack of finesse in the final third against Poland cannot be overstated. The danger of James’ pace is obvious, but the sense that Brennan Johnson might’ve buried that chance in the first half is impossible to ignore. 

Bale isn’t football’s only former god reckoning with the reality of his age. This week, Cristiano Ronaldo found himself at the epicentre of similar diatribe with the Portugal national team and whether his starting position should be under threat. It’s hard. Watching players who have been virtually without peers and having to accept that the game is moving on without them. They are far from alone in being eager to play at a level that has pushed past them. They won’t be the last. 

But in the 92nd minute of a match with a free kick to take? The question is as existential as it is literal. Either way, the answer is the same.

The goal is 90-minute shape week in and week out before November for Bale. The game plan to reach that point is direct communication with Los Angeles FC to build Bale to that place. Page is confident it can be done. 

Page insisted a full-strength Wales is capable of playing at the top-level. Such a claim is not delusional. The next two months will be key in ensuring that strength is met. Promotion to Nations League A was always going to present an opportunity for a steep learning curve, and in that sense, Wales’ emerged from it better than originally imagined. The experiences for fringe players to compete at a top level with genuine jeopardy against elite sides rank second to none. For players like Rhys Norrington-Davies, Morrell, Levitt and Ben Cabango, the performances in this camp place them in good stead for a guaranteed seat on the plane to Qatar. 

Pivotally, the floor of the squad has been, consequently, lifted. 

But for all the talk of lessons learnt, there is one that wasn’t so much learnt as it was cemented in itself: when Gareth Bale wants to play the full 90 minutes, you let him.