Last week he was having his car damaged by hoodlums in Madrid who blamed him for the defeat to Barcelona but this week Gareth Bale is looking like a €100 million man again. Having scored two goals in a hugely impressive 3-0 win away at Israel at the weekend, Bale propelled his Wales side to the top of their qualification group.
What's the secret in this transformation?
Bale is indulged with Wales just like Cristiano Ronaldo is at Real Madrid. In the colours of his national team, Bale is very much the top man and does not have to tip-toe around anyone or feel guilty because a team-mate's shot might have caught his foot before hitting the net. Wales treat Bale like the most expensive footballer in the world. They play to him, they protect him and they are thrilled to have him around.
Their reward?
Well, Wales are on course to qualify for their first international tournament since 1958 with Bale having scored four times during their opening five matches. On Saturday he scored a delightful free-kick; he cannot get near dead ball opportunities at Real Madrid. He also scored a thumping second which set the Welsh up for their victory.
Coach Chris Coleman deserves plenty of credit for the turnaround in Bale's game in recent weeks. While he works hard for Madrid, he is generally restricted to the right side and is expected to lay on chances for Ronaldo and Karim Benzema as well as track back.
The attacking focus with Wales, instead, is on him and he is free to take chances on from all over the attacking third. Only Wayne Rooney has taken more shots in the qualifiers so far.
The Madrid press could not bring itself to give Bale a rating for his efforts in last week's Clasico but Marca, a Real Madrid mouthpiece, had no choice but to be effusive in its praise for Bale's performance in Haifa. The paper described him as Wales's "Messi" and said that Carlo Ancelotti could learn a lot about how Bale is deployed in a Welsh shirt.
Or perhaps, that sort of Messi comparison is why Ronaldo looks a little hostile when having to share the pitch with him. If Bale's Messi-like potential could be unleashed fully at Madrid then maybe his reputation would take some attention away from Ronaldo's own goalscoring exploits.
Bale looks the part for Wales. He is the leader, he is happy, he is the main man. Away from the Bernabeu bear pit he is free to be himself and Wales, collectively, have benefited.
"I love playing for Wales," he told Wales Online. "It’s a big honour and the most important thing is I focus on my football. I don’t listen to what anyone else is saying. I'm just enjoying my football with the boys here."
| Montenegro hard work undone by 'barbarians' |
Montenegro were assigned number 199 in the Fifa ranking when they first launched their team in 2007. Barely four years later they had cracked the top 20 and were placed 16th. For a country that only played their first competitive fixture in 2008, that was a remarkable achievement.
Montenegro's ascent has been rapid. They missed out on the 2012 Euros only after losing a play-off to Czech Republic but this was supposed to be their breakout campaign. With the European Championship expanding from 16 to 24 teams, there was every chance that Montenegro with their star players like Stevan Jovetic and Mirko Vucinic would be among the qualifiers for France 2016. Events at the weekend, however, are likely to deprive the team of their right to compete.
"These fans sing 'Montenegro we love you' but throw flares, insult rivals and cause all sorts of incidents every time they turn up and that's outright hypocrisy," Montenegrin FA general secretary Momir Djurdjevac told the press on Saturday night. "We have left the impression of barbarians and this is a complete disaster. It seems we don't deserve to have a nation, a football team or a berth in a major tournament."
Not for the first time, Montenegrin fans have let their team down. Following reports of robberies in San Marino and the spitting incident involving Ashley Cole, the Montenegro supporters again disgraced themselves against Russia in Podgorica.
The flare which hit Igor Akinfeev in the Russian goal was only the beginning. Another missile was launched at Dmitri Kombarov in the second half which led to the game being called off. There were also reports of fighting in the city both before and after the abandoned match.
Both the Montenegrin and Russian football associations have been charged by Uefa with Montenegro braced for a three-point penalty as well as a stadium ban. Uefa president Michel Platini spoke only last week of his fears that the "dark days" of hooliganism would come back. How right he was proven to be.
If Russia are awarded the points then they, in third place, will move onto eight points - three clear of Montenegro in fourth. At the top of the group, Austria have 13 points and Sweden have nine, meaning Montenegro will surely miss out on even a play-off berth.
"We will in all likelihood pay a hefty fine and say goodbye to a major tournament but what scares me is that this can happen again," said Djurdjevac. "Someone must step forward and say 'Enough'. Who wants to play for the national team under such circumstances? These players have a big dream and it's to qualify with our tiny nation for a major tournament but we are going nowhere."
| No respite for hapless Kompany |
The international fixtures provided an opportunity for Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany to dismiss his club woes and concentrate on realigning Belgium's Euro 2016 bid. It had been a stop-start campaign for the Belgians and so these two victories against Cyprus and Israel will have been welcomed. The three points earned in Jerusalem on Tuesday night finally put favourites Belgium to the top of the group where they will now be expected to stay.
However, Kompany's bizarre outing against Israel did nothing to alleviate the stresses he has suffered at City nor did he contribute positively to Belgium's quest for the points. He defended shakily, firing multiple clearances straight up in the sky, attempted a baffling keepy-up and volley from the halfway line and ultimately was sent off for two of the most shambolic bookings you are likely to see.
The game was only 10 minutes old when he committed an avoidable foul on ex-Chelsea youngster Ben Sahar. After an hour of play he tried a stepover in front of Eran Zahavi only to lose the ball to the Maccabi Tel Aviv winger. Once dispossessed, he was all over Zahavi, dragging back the Israel man and trying to stop a breakaway. It was little surprise he was sent off by Mark Clattenburg, who is well acquainted with Kompany from his time in the Premier League.
Immediately after the dismissal, coach Marc Wilmots opted to send on Jason Denayer for his debut. The 19-year-old Celtic man is earning rave reviews in Scotland for his performances but is only on loan at Parkhead from Manchester City. Kompany is now facing a suspension as Wales lie in wait for a do-or-die battle at the top of Group B in June. Now Denayer is breathing down his idol's neck for a place in the national team and, should Kompany's form continue to deteriorate, maybe at club level too.
| All Chicharito needs is a chance |
Gareth Bale is not the only Real Madrid attacker to use the international break to regain some self-belief. Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez is something of a forgotten man at Santiago Bernabeu these days following his loan move from Manchester United but served a timely reminder of his abilities with a stunning winning goal against Ecuador at the weekend.
Picking the ball up outside the area, Hernandez bent it into the far corner to win the friendly game for Miguel Herrera's side and put himself back on the goal trail. He then revealed in an interview with Fox Sports just how much his torrid spells at Old Trafford and in the Spanish capital had affected him.
"I've cried," he admitted. "I've been through everything. The feeling I have most of all over the last couple of years is one of frustration. You feel frustrated when you're part of a team, you do everything you can in training, collaborating and helping, then at the weekend the opportunities to play are minimal.
"So, if you can't help for good or for bad, in the most important games then sometimes my confidence is rock-bottom, even though I try to keep it sky-high, with the help of the people around me, who are always supportive."
His confidence may indeed be "rock bottom" but there is more than a grain of truth in Chicharito's insistence that all he needs is a chance. He has not let Real Madrid down though he lacks the muscularity and selflessness of Karim Benzema.
He is not expecting to start every week for Real but his total of 217 minutes in the league, and only one start, is scant reward for a diligent player who has managed to net one Liga goal every 70 minutes or so he has been on the field. He scored and made an assist in his one start, for the record.
Fighting on two fronts, Madrid are going to need all the help they can get in the last few months of the season and a reliable goalscorer like Hernandez could make all the difference in tight matches. All he needs is a chance.
| Halilhodzic turns Japan around |
These have not been the happiest few months for Japanese football. The Samurai Blue went out of the World Cup at the group stage, without winning a match, and were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the Asian Cup by the United Arab Emirates having played poor football to that point.
Amid the on-field disappointment came the news that new coach Javier Aguirre was to be investigated for his part in a match-fixing scandal stemming from his time at Real Zaragoza. That was hardly the ideal preparation for the upcoming 2018 World Cup campaign in which Japan would be expected to qualify for a sixth straight finals.
Subsequently, Aguirre lost his job and he was replaced by the JFA with the man who took Algeria to the World Cup last-16, Vahid Halilhodzic. The charismatic Bosnian took charge of Japan for the first time during this international break and two wins from two matches have reinvigorated the nation ahead of the AFC World Cup qualifiers which kick off in June.
Shinji Okazaki and Keisuke Honda were the scorers as Japan first beat Tunisia 2-0 last week before a 5-1 win on Tuesday against Uzbekistan. Honda was fulsome in his praise for Halilhodzic following the Tunisia game and his natural gambler's instinct has already won favour with the Japanese press having used 29 players in his first two matches.
Japan should be the pre-eminent team in Asia given their resources and player development plans and maybe now they will realise their potential following a tough year with "Vaha" at the helm.
No comments:
Post a Comment