The Warm-Up: Zinedine Zidane has Gareth Bale beef regardless of the denials

You, dear reader, are probably aware that one Gareth Frank Bale did not feature for one Real Madrid Club de Fútbol in a decision taken by one Zinedine Yazid Zidane in their 2019 International Champions Cup fixture against one Fußball-Club Bayern München. The reason? Well, and The Warm-Up is reading between the lines here, is Zizou doesn’t like Gareth much. Nope. Not one bit. A fact the 47-year-old made very clear, to The Warm-Up’s mind anyway, when asked on the matter.

Now, while to the uninitiated, the above quote might not seem overly pointed. However, The Warm-Up’s duty-bound at this juncture to point out that Zidane is a complete bore in press conferences; the man has an innate talent to open his mouth only for the words that come out to immediately disappear into the ether rendering the proceeding question a complete and utter waste of everybody’s time. So in Zidane parlance the above quotes amount to a serious smattering of beef.

Still not convinced? Well, look at what came next:

The *personal beef alarm bell* is honking all over the gaff when someone starts a statement with “I have nothing personal against…”.

So, where does said personal beef come from? Well, for The Warm-Up it is clear as day: The 2018 Champions League final in Kiev. Bale had just trotted off the bench to fire a brace in a 3-1 win against Liverpool, one of which was a rocket of a bicycle kick, to secure Zidane his third Champions League on the bounce. It was a performance that won him MOM, and so Gareth Frank Bale decided to give it the BIG I AM, telling anyone that would listen that if he wasn’t the main man next season he was off.

Absolute large. Firing shots at Zidane in the wake of Zidane’s greatest-ever achievement – yes, three Champions Leagues on the bounce supersedes a couple of headers in a World Cup final you bunch of hipsters.

Zidane would end up leaving the club and Bale would remain. Was Zidane’s exit linked to Bale’s chat? Nah, not directly. However, Bale had undermined his manager – of that there was no doubt. Bale was in a position of power as a) he had just done the business in a Champions League final and b) Real president Florentino Perez is known to be loath to sell a Galactico that he has signed as it is an admission of failure. Bale leveraged those facts to pressurise Zidane. Bale larged it and Zidane has not forgotten.

The beef may have nothing to do with the above (if it doesn’t then Zidane is a bigger character than The Warm-Up who would be absolutely raging at that sort of behaviour) but be sure of one thing: there is personal beef there.

First things first, Harry Maguire is an excellent footballer; a bit slow but an excellent, excellent footballer. A very good defender, great in the air and very good with the ball at his feet for, cliché incoming alert, a big lad. However, Harry Maguire is a bit slow. Now, call The Warm-Up overly prudent but if The Warm-Up or any football club for that matter is going to relieve themselves of 80 million quid for a professional athlete, said professional athlete should not be a bit slow.

Let The Warm-Up write out £80 million. £80,000,000. That’s a lot of money right there. Plus Harry isn’t even his first name. That would be Jacob.

Leicester City signed him for £17 million in 2017 – please do tell has he made 63 million quid’s worth of progress these last two years? Nah, not for The Warm-Up, and the inflation truthers can do one as well!

Celtic don’t trust Arsenal to make the Champions League and as such want more sheets up front for Kieran Tierney. Wow. The disrespect. Celtic Football Club do not think it is realistic that Arsenal will make the Champions League.

We were all thinking it but they have outright said it. Wow.

Harry Kane taking the Roberto Firmino no-look finish to all sorts of levels, here.

The absolute state of this defending.

Heinous.

This, from Daniel Storey, is a few days old but this seriously could be a definitive year in the Premier League – the old guard are there for the taking and everyone knows it.

Here is a snippet from the above hyper-linked story.

It is a rest day at the Tour de France but the Bradley Wiggins pod is out this morning so get your earlugs around that.

Football-wise, erm, well there are some transfer stories knocking about. Have a gander at Paper Round here.