A reflection of Bale and Neymar's career in Spain via /r/soccer
A reflection of Bale and Neymar’s career in Spain
Gareth Bale vs Neymar, something that lots of people call the junior “Ronaldo vs Messi” debate, I am sure all of you have heard about these two. Gareth Bale costing a world record fee for Real Madrid to get him, Neymar also commanding a huge pay transfer with money and orgies to get to barcelona, and both being two of the worlds best players.
Why do these two get compared? Simple really, they are two incredible players who are part of one of, if not the biggest rivalry in world football, “El Clasico”, featuring the two teams of Barcelona and Real Madrid who are two of the worlds best teams. And here I will be talking about their careers in Spain and how they have done. P.S. This is a comparison of the two players and for you to decide whos better if you want, but more to also show how succesful both have been since there huge transfers
Season 2013/14: So this is the season both Neymar and Gareth Bale joined their respective Spanish clubs, huge fees, and hopefully bright futures. Bale started off with a bit of an injury problem but once making his debut against Villareal and scoring the goal to make it 1-1 people could see that there was a reason he was so highly wanted, even in his home debut against Sevilla he scored two and even notched an impressive 2 assists in a thrilling 7-3 for Real Madrid, Real Madrid fans getting happy with what they were seeing, and while Bale had some injury problems, he had an overall good season winning the UCL and Copa Del Rey, scoring in each with both of the goals giving Real Madrid the lead and eventually to win both of them, with Bale even being named MOTM against barcelona in the copa del rey final.
Most Real Madrid fans were overall happy with the trophies won and happy with what Bale was producing, individually Bale was doing great being directly involved in 35+ goals, including the two crucial winners.
So seeing with how well Bale did in his debut season how did Neymar do? Well he started in a decent fashion, he even scored his first goal against atletico madrid with a nice header, showing that he could perform even in the biggest games, and that showed in his debut game vs Real Madrid where he even scored and barca won the match with fans really seeing Nyemar in a great light. Sadly however Neymar started to not perform as well as he did against atletico and real madrid, and his performances were not that great.
He came up with a goal then and there and pop up with an assist but overall his debut season was not outstanding with barca going trophyless, however it was decent because he was settling into a team as big as barca and he even managed to be directly involved in 20+ goals and showed that he was quality in quite a few games, and with time on his side most knew that better things were to come from Neymar (spoiler: they did).
2014/15: So with Bale having a very nice debut season showing fans that he was a star, things were expected from Bale, big things. He started off very nicely with the 2-0 supercup final win against Sevilla with getting a very nice assist to get the first goal, he then went on scoring Real Madrids first la liga goal of the season against Malaga with a cheeky nutmeg, and fans were getting ready for another great season. Bale started the first half of the season in a decent fashion, but fans were expecting more. Sadly his performances slipped alot especially in the latter half of the season, with fans starting to get on his back of him not passing on times when he should, and that he was bad against defensive sides were he couldnt have space, and his game against Juventus in the semi-finals was something fans got really angry over.
There were even fans thinking he should be sold and that he was not worth the money paid for him, with some saying he should even be benched. Bale was still directly involved in 20+ goals, with 6 of those 20 coming against 6 of the top 10 teams in la liga showing he was still making the goals against the big boys, but overall he had a dissapointing year to his standards, especially when compared to his first.
So with Bale not having that good of a second season…How did Neymar do? To put it bluntly, he was showing the world that he is worth the money and it showed through his performances. Fans were expecting more with Neymar not doing great in his debut season, and Neymar showed why he was such a fantastic football prospect, he scored in each of the knock out rounds in the cl (something never to be done before) and had an overall fantastic year with barca winning the treble and even the copa del rey because why not.
Suarez also played a huge part in these trophies but Neymar was still extremely important, and definetely showed why he was a world class player in the biggest stage of football. Individually Neymar was directly involved in 35+ goals and was setting the football world alight.
2015/16: so with Neymar having such a fantastic second season how did his third hold? Well at the first half of the season Messi got a lengthy injury and barca were needing Neymar to step up, and holy fuck did he ever. Neymar started the season off tremendously with scoring against Villareal, Atletico, and Real Madrid, and was even part of a 4-0 win against Real Madrid with even scoring in the match, and it seemed barca fans were not even to worried with Messi out with how Suarez and Neymar were connecting.
Neymar even got third place in the ballon d'or only behind Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo with his great performances. Once Messi came back from injury Neymar was still playing well, until rouphly January-February time when he started to sadly hit off into a really bad patch of form, not only was he not banging the goals in but barca were kicked out of the cl in the quarter finals with Neymars games against atletico drawing some critiscism from people, even fans. Neymar still scored some goals then and there in the second half of the season but it was nowehere close to how good he was at the start, and barca who had a 12 point lead were slowly losing points when most already predicted them to win the league comfortably.
Neymars games may have not been the best in some but he contributed an assist in a 3-0 win against Granada to give barca the league title, so even though the second half may not have been as good, he still had those fantastic games at the start which were winning barca points and they were still important, not to mention barca then winning 2-0 against sevilla in the copa del rey with Neymar scoring the second, overall he may have had a bad second half of the season, but it was still an overall good season especially considering the form he was in at the start.
So with Bale having a below-average second season how did his third one go? Well it went very…Very well. At the start Real Madrid drew 0-0 to sporting with people not being impressed with rafa putting Bale in the center instead of on the wing, and he may have had a decent game, but it wasnt good enough for Bale’s lofty expectations. Madrid fans were scared it was gonna be another bad season… well it turned out to be pretty much the polar opposite. Bale had quite bad injury problems at the start of the season but when he played he did well
Madrid then played barca and lost 4-0, and fans were scared of how Real Madrids season would go, with Rafa eventually sacked who Bale played well under, it was a Real Madrid legend, Zidane who took the manager spot and gave Real Madrid momentum, and even though Bale was having an overall good season with rafa in, Real Madrid overall were not doing that well with rafa…But under Zidane it changed, Bale was still playing great and even got better towards the latter end of the season, with Madrid beating barca 2-1 with a very stange goal from Bale which was dissalowed for no good reason, but karma came in the end and Bale even got the winning assist to make Real Madrid win the game and it was a start of Madrids season to turn better, and barcas season was starting to take a dive. With barca losing points Real Madrid obviously needed to win games, and with Real Madrid doing good overall winning games, Bale was doing great, scoring, assisting, creating, beating players for dead, etc and even winning games on his own to keep Madrid in the tital race, Madrid came second in the league only by a mere 2 points, which was respectable. And Real Madrid was still in the cl with Bale having good games vs Roma, Wolfsburg first leg (even though they lost 2-0), and was overall Real Madrids MOTM in the semi finals vs man city with Bale making the only goal of the tie happen, it was classified an own goal but without Bale it would not have happened
This led Real Madrid to a cl final vs atletico and when the game started, Real Madrids offense was not doing too well, except for Bale with the welsh bastard getting past Luis and Juanfran who are two of the best fullbacks in the world, he was creating good chances throughout the game and was involved in the only goal for Real Madrid assisting Ramos, Atletico equalized to make it 1-1 but Real Madrid won the match on penalties with Bale putting his away, Bale may have only gotten 3 assists in 8 games for his UCL campaign but it was much better than what those stats say, considering how well he played without even getting goals and assists. With the win it made Gareth Bale have 2UCL titles in only a mere 3 seasons, a fantastic feat, and Bale was loved again by the fans and individually was directly involved in 35+ goals with a fantastic season.
So individually both have had one rough season, and two fantastic ones, here is the stats and some notable achievements in their career since arriving in Spain (I am only judging their direct goal contributions from UCL + La liga, because I cannot find it for the others like copa del rey, club world cup, and the supercup so sorry :(, but its ok because its still ridiculous)
Neymar:
124 games
direct goal contributions (goals and assists): 107
averages a goal or assist every 93 minutes
Notable teams he has scored or assisted against:
Real Madrid, Bayern, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Villareal, Sevilla, Valencia, PSG.
notable achievements:
scored in each of the knockout rounds in the 2014/15 season, no player has ever reached this feat, he was also directly involved in 10 goals in that UCL campaign
has won the Champions league once, La liga twice, and copa del rey twice, also has won the supercup and club world cup
3rd place in the ballon D'or
Gareth Bale
games: 111
direct goal contributions (goals and assists): 96
averages a goal or an assist every 91 minutes
Notable teams he has scored or assisted against: Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Dortmund, Villareal, Sevilla, Valencia.
Notable achievments: Wales qualified for the Euros for the first time in over 50 years, with Bale scoring or assisting 9 of the 11 goals in the qualifiers
Won the cl twice in his first three seasons for Real Madrid, before he arrived Real Madrid had not won the competition for over 10+ years
Top British scorer of all time in La Liga
Has played five finals for Real Madrid, winning every single one with him getting at least goal or assist in each of the finals, including a spectacular goal vs barca in the copa del rey final
Well there you have it, hope you enjoyed reading the careers of Gareth Bale and Neymar and how good they have been since arriving in Spain. So while you can think one may be better than the other, you should realize the success they bought since arriving and the goals they score for their respective teams
Submitted June 01, 2016 at 05:33PM by Gythy via reddit http://ift.tt/1RNzP6O
