A fifth Champions League final pocketed, Gareth Bale teams up with Wales in the next 24 hours for an even more important date with destiny as he seeks to ...
Would that suit someone who knows he needs to rest his body with the World Cup approaching? It seems unlikely on the surface, but even Wales boss Rob Page admits the Bluebirds 'tick a lot of boxes' for Bale. His agent Jonathan Barnett has already stated Bale's next move would be for personal reasons, where he wants to play, rather than financial. Remember, Bale burst through with Southampton and Wales at the age of 16 and he's been kicked from pillar to post during the intervening 16 years. Bale has plenty of football left in him. This is the one scenario no-one in Wales wants to see happen.
The Wales captain, 32, bowed out by earning his fifth Champions League winners' medal in Paris following Real Madrid's 1-0 win over Liverpool on Saturday night.
The former Cardiff defender has penned a two-year extension. Cruelly, though, his Premier League captain was cut short after just 14 games when he sustained a nasty knee injury. The Black Satellites, as they are known, will compete in Group B against Indonesia, Mexico and Venezuela. However, in recent days promotion hopefuls Nottingham Forest have shot out of nowhere and into the odds list, now priced at 20/1 just below Atletico Madrid. He is certainly a player Cardiff think highly of. This time last year, he was playing for non-league Mangotsfield United, by January he had made his senior Cardiff debut against Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Cup.