Gareth Bale made his first minutes for Real Madrid on Sunday since June 2020. The attacker is back after a loan period with Tottenham Hotspur and was on the field in the Wörthersee Stadium in Austria in the first half of the exhibition game with AC Milan (0-0). . Bale missed a penalty, but afterwards in England, the focus is mainly on the number with which he appeared on the field. The Daily Mail expresses his surprise at the ‘unnecessarily high’ number 50 worn by Bale.
Bale wore shirt number 11 for Real Madrid between 2013 and 2020, but after his departure on loan, Marco Asensio was assigned that number. Assensio was not there against Milan on Sunday, because he participated in the Olympic Games with Spain. The Daily Mail calls uniform number 50 for Bale ‘bizarre’ for that reason, but draws a comparison with Eden Hazard, who made his unofficial debut for Real Madrid in 2019 with the same jersey number. It was then a temporary number; the Belgian is now wearing number 7.
Gareth Bale vs Mike Maignan
????? pic.twitter.com/AMN6kiExyA— AC Milan Brasil II (??????) (@acmilanbrvideos) August 8, 2021
According to international reports at the time, Hazard himself chose number 50 during his debut on July 20, 2019. On that day it was exactly 50 years ago that Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the moon. Hazard’s debut match, an exhibition game with Bayern Munich in the Champions Cup, was also completed in Houston, a short distance from NASA’s Space Center. Hazard reportedly was allowed to choose a song that was still free and decided to honor Armstrong.
Like Bale, Luka Jovic and Martin Ödegaard do not yet have permanent numbers for the new season, but they were given ‘lower’ numbers: 18 and 21 respectively. Bale, who saw a penalty kick saved by goalkeeper Mike Maignan four minutes before half time, is only one year left under contract at the Santiago Bernabéu. He has so far accounted for 251 official appearances, 105 goals and 68 assists.
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