Gareth Bale has probably been the only player who has been subjected to lots of negative media coverage for the price tag he is being associated with after signing a record breaking deal with Real Madrid some two seasons ago and ever since he penned down the deal almost everyone is talking about when he will prove if price paid for him was justified. Even his international assignments carry some kind of pressure every time he enters into the field for Wales national side and fortunately this is the time when he can answer his critics for everything they had said about him. Wales enters into the semifinal of Euro 2016 which is an amazing achievement for highly demotivated side without having any big name in the side except Bale. Their quarterfinal’s 3-1 victory over Belgium helped them secure a deserving place in the semis which is their best performance in a major international event after reaching into the quarterfinals of World Cup in Sweden back in 1958. Anyways, talking about this Euro season and how far they can go from now, Real Madrid priciest player said, “I remember Toni Kroos saying we’d only have three games here. So it would be nice to meet him in the final.
“It was a good laugh and a joke — a bit of banter — but I’ve had a lot of abuse over the years. When we used to lose and we were 100th in the world, people would say ‘you have nine weeks holiday instead of two. So it’s great to finally be in a major tournament actually doing great things with our national team.”
Looking at the other semifinals, Bale believes Germany would be their final contender should they overcome Portugal on Wednesday for a place in the final of Euro 2016. He specifically downplays France’s hope to enter into the Euro final over Germany who is more competent and in better form these days. He added, “We’ve obviously exceeded a lot of people’s expectations, we understand that. But we always believed we could go all the way — you see the fairytale of Greece and Denmark in the past and you think why can’t we do it? We grew as a team in qualifying and we’ve just grown more throughout the tournament. The England game we learned from our mistakes of not passing the ball. When we’ve had to win ugly we’ve won ugly, and when we’ve had to play football we’ve played football.”
Gareth Bale: CosminIftode / Shutterstock.com