Gareth Bale, James Rodriguez Omitted From Real Madrid's Champions League Squad
Two of Real Madrid's most frustrated stars won't be joining the club for its trip to Manchester.
Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez were omitted by Zinedine Zidane for Real Madrid's Champions League squad that will try to overturn a 2-1 last-16 deficit against Manchester City.
Bale and James, two players who have perpetually been the subject of transfer questions to Zidane, are healthy scratches for Friday's showdown at the Etihad. Sergio Ramos, who is suspended for the match due to a red card he received at the end of the first leg in February, will travel with the team anyway.
The omissions will do little to quell speculation regarding the future for both players, who have clearly not been in Zidane's good graces. Regardless, Bale's agent maintains that the Welsh star is content to play out his contract with Real Madrid, which still has two more seasons to run, and is not looking to leave. All this despite having a move to a Chinese club nearly come to fruition last summer only for it to fall through.
"Gareth is fine. He has two years left on his contract," Jonathan Barnett told the BBC two weeks ago. "He likes living in Madrid and he is going nowhere.
"He is still as good as anyone else in the team. It's up to Zinedine Zidane.
"Of course there's been interest but there's hardly a club in the world which can afford him.
"It's a great loss that he's not in the Real Madrid team at the moment but he will not leave."
The decision to bring Bale to Manchester evidently wasn't up to Zidane, though, not according to his prematch comments.
“It was a personal conversation I had with him,” Zidane said. “He preferred not to play. The rest remains between me and him, but he said he didn’t want to play.”
Bale played sparingly after La Liga restarted, making just two appearances (one start) as Real Madrid won 10 straight matches to wrest the title from Barcelona.
James, meanwhile, played even less than Bale after the restart, making one appearance, a start vs. Real Sociedad. He made just eight league appearances all season and has been the subject of constant transfer rumors–the latest linking him with a crosstown move to Atletico Madrid. The Colombian international's personal feud with Zidane is no secret, with the manager publicly claiming after an absence vs. Athletic Bilbao that “He wanted to be left out because of his own reasons. The reasons are between us and I’m not going to tell you any more."
Real Madrid will move forward without them and the ineligible Ramos, looking to continue its quest for a 14th European title.
Man City wiped out a 1-0 second-half deficit with goals five minutes apart at the Bernabeu, with Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne staking the English power to its aggregate advantage. The winner will advance to face either Juventus or Lyon in the quarterfinals, with that round, the semifinals and the final being played over a span from Aug. 12-23 in Lisbon, Portugal. As a result of the rescheduling and relocation of the competition due to the coronavirus pandemic, the quarterfinals and semifinals will be one-off bouts instead of aggregate ties.
