Gareth Bale Reveals How 'Anger' Inspired His Amazing Champions League Final Display

Gareth Bale has described how he overcame his anger at being left out of Real Madrid's Champions League final starting lineup to score two decisive goals as a substitute.

The Welshman was left on the bench for the final against Liverpool in May, but was brought on with the scores level at 1-1 in the 61st minute.

Having felt aggrieved at being left out, Bale told the Daily Mail that he was angry when he finally entered the fray, determined to prove manager Zinedine Zidane wrong.

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"Angry. Quite angry, to be honest," he says, describing his mind-set as he was brought on. "Obviously, I felt I deserved to start the game. I'd been scoring goals. So yeah, I suppose it was hard to put the anger aside."

Within two minutes, Bale produced the moment of the match when he connected with a brilliant overhead kick from Marcelo's cross, which flew beyond the despairing dive of Loris Karius.

"You could opt to take the ball down and do something then," says Bale. "But you know you are in a situation where if you're going to get closed down you have to try something.

"You certainly don't really think about looking stupid. If you don't try things, things never happen. If you have time to think about it, it doesn't come off. It's when you have to make those reaction decisions that you normally tend to get the best results.

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"I knew exactly where the ball went and you can see in the video my head turns to look exactly where the ball is going. As soon as I hit it I knew it was good."

Bale later scored his second with the help of some mis-handling by Karius as Madrid won their third consecutive Champions League trophy. The Welshman also revealed in the same interview his words to the Liverpool keeper after the final whistle.

Bale and Real Madrid's title defence begins at home to Roma on Wednesday.