Most fans have at some point believed the national newspaper they read is the unofficial mouthpiece of a rival club.
But thankfully in this country that’s not true. Newspapers certainly push stories about teams with the most followers as, by definition, those stories will attract the biggest audience. But no national paper would survive if they nailed their colours every day to the mast of one team.
It’s not the same in Spain, where national sports daily Marca is widely viewed as an in-house publication for Real Madrid. That’s why Gareth Bale was labelled a parasite in its pages for supposedly playing only for Wales not Real, and that’s why his response was to turn it back on the Madrid-based paper by claiming everyone knows who the real parasite is.
As Bale enters the final three months of his £500,000-a-week contract this saga is going to get nastier. The Madrid media will paint him as a leech who only played when he felt like, he will argue he should have been picked more and point to what he achieved: Scoring more goals for the club than the Brazilian Ronaldo, assisting more times than David Beckham, playing more games than Luis Figo and winning more trophies as a player than Zinedine Zidane.
After the parasite slur, Marca journalist Juan Castro defended his paper’s hostility by saying: “We made really big positive headlines in the first years of Gareth here but sadly he stopped playing in Madrid.” But the truth is he was slaughtered almost from the day he joined in 2013 because many Madridistas could not accept he cost twice as much as Neymar, the revelation Barcelona had just signed.
In his first Clasico, at the Nou Camp, when lacking match fitness and being played at No.9 to accommodate bigger egos, Bale struggled and was crucified by the media. Marca labelled him the worst player on the pitch, said the fans' patience was already wearing thin and warned Bale that "the pressure is mounting."
HAVE YOUR SAY! Has Bale lost his hunger for club football? Let us know in the comments section
The impatience was typical of Real in the Galactico era, when under Florentino Perez they would out-manoeuvre every other club for the world’s emerging talents and if those players didn't hit standards seen on YouTube would be fed to the lions. In a 2020 Netflix documentary Nicolas Anelka talked of the "hostility" within the club due to how much he'd cost and called the Madrid press "vicious" as a front page headline was flashed up asking "Is Anelka a fraud?" Eden Hazard is getting the same treatment now as they attempt to dump him.
It even applies to home-grown legends. Iker Casillas was driven out of the Bernabeu by abusive fans after 25 years in which he’d won five La Ligas and three Champions Leagues. His Spanish team-mate Xavi said he’d been treated with "malicious intent." The uncomfortable truth for Real Madrid’s cheerleaders is that most outsiders want to wave white hankies in the direction of a club which believes it has a divine right to be the biggest and best in the world.
Financed by a Spanish TV rights duopoly with Barcelona which left the rest of La Liga relatively impoverished, they turned the heads of emerging stars, seduced agents, leaked news about done deals, planted stories that say these players believe they were born to play at the Bernabeu while screwing the price as low as possible.
And when state and oligarch-owned clubs like Chelsea, PSG and Manchester City threatened their ability to bribe the best talents, it was Perez who became the driving force behind the breakaway European Super League, one of the most destructive, self-serving and immoral acts in sporting history.
So the question is: If Real Madrid view Bale as a bloodsucker on the game of football, does it take a parasite to know a parasite?
Southgate right to call out Maguire boo boys
England boss Gareth Southgate was right to shame the cretins who booed Harry Maguire at Wembley on Tuesday. This is a player who, despite a troubled time at Manchester United, has given England everything in the 42 games he’s played. The jeering of their own has gone on for years, because many England fans lack perspective.
Although Southgate fell into the same trap when he said it would be “particularly sad” if Harry Kane broke the all-time England scoring record at Molineux against Italy in June, as there would be no England fans present due to the appalling behaviour of some of them at the Euros final. With the heartbreak going on in Ukraine and millions at home having to choose between heating and eating it lacks all perspective to claim the fans’ absence would be even remotely sad.
Meanwhile, in a year ago this week there were mass calls for Stephen Kenny’s head. Ireland had been beaten at home by lowly Luxembourg killing any chance of making the World Cup play-offs and leaving Kenny without a win in ten games as national boss.
The Irish Independent said at the time: “The Stephen Kenny project has hit rock bottom” and it is “tragic” to see the team struggling so badly. But the FAI stuck with the former Dundalk coach and their belief that he could bring a more expansive and winning style to a team that had been left behind playing a dour, long-ball game.
It was a wise choice as, in the 12 games since, Kenny’s side have lost only once, and that was away to Portugal. It’s always good to see faith in an unproven manager and his beliefs rewarded. The Irish just need a decent crop of youngsters to come through and hopefully they’ll be flying again.
