Gareth Bale's Real Madrid stats compared to Cristiano, Zidane, Ronaldo & Figo | OneFootball

Happy 33rd birthday, Gareth Bale.

The extraordinary Welshman enjoyed a stellar career at the top of the European footballing mountain, and has recently begun a new challenge in signing for MLS outfit Los Angeles FC.

Bale’s move to MLS confirmed the end of a nine-year stint at Real Madrid that was trophy laden, but never without criticism hurled in the direction of the winger.

Emerging as one of the most exciting attackers in football in the early 2010s with Tottenham, his tantalising performances week after week resulted in Real paying a world record fee to bring Bale to the Santiago Bernabeu in 2013.

The Wales international would form an unworldly trio with Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo that proved near unstoppable at times, as Los Blancos dominated European football.

But for all the goals Bale scored and the unforgettable, dizzying highlight reel-worthy performances he put in while wearing the Real jersey throughout his nine years, the Welshman could never escape criticism from all angles in Spain.

Bale’s turbulent time in Madrid

Be it an apparent inability to learn the language – which we now know is not true following his epic LAFC introduction – his disconnect from life in Madrid or his constant battle for fitness, Bale could not catch a break despite his best efforts, and was regularly villainised by the press.

As a result, his final few years in Madrid saw him fade in importance, regularly being left out of matchday squads and instead being pictured playing golf in his downtime, or holding up ‘Wales, golf, Madrid’ banners while on international duty. Perhaps that one didn’t help your cause, Gareth.

Either way, despite his countless glorious moments in a Los Blancos jersey, he finally left in 2022 with the jury out on his time in the Spanish capital. Many are still under the illusion that Bale didn’t fulfil his potential at Real, and actually flopped to a degree.

Well, that could not be more false. And on his birthday, it’s only right that the statistics come out to back him up and silence the doubters, as he has done so often on the pitch over the years.

Bale was far from a flop at Real. Actually, his success and contributions to the club are rather surprising, compared to many of those who are considered club legends. Using stats pulled together from the folks at Planet Football and from @Twitugal on Twitter in 2019, we can see just how impactful Bale was in Madrid.

Let’s take a look.

Gareth Bale’s Real Madrid stats compared to legends

Gareth Bale – 9 seasons, 258 games, 106 goals, 67 assists, 16 trophies won

Cristiano Ronaldo – 9 seasons, 438 games, 450 goals, 131 assists, 15 trophies won

Luis Figo – 5 seasons, 245 games, 58 goals, 76 assists, 7 trophies won

Ronaldo Nazario – 4 seasons, 177 games, 104 goals, 27 assists, 4 trophies won

Zinedine Zidane – 5 seasons, 239 games, 49 goals, 63 assists, 6 trophies won

Deal agreed for Zinchenko (Football Terrace)

Let’s quickly make one thing clear – stats aren’t the be all and end all of the beautiful game.

To truly appreciate the brilliance of each of these players, you have to watch them doing what they do best; playing.

But, the stats do help us determine how effective each player was. And more importantly, they rubbish several myths about Bale not being effective during his time at Real.

Portuguese icon Ronaldo carved out a superhuman legacy with Los Blancos that will never be matched again, so for Bale to be within any kind of territory of his stats in the same amount of time – and to be able to forge his own legacy while sharing a pitch with him – is testament in itself.

To notch 173 goal contributions from 258 games – including nine goals and assists in finals – is an exceptional feat from the Welshman, who was continually feeling the crunch at perhaps the biggest club in the world.

His goal tally dwarfs that of Figo and Zidane, sits in a similar ballpark to that of Brazilian Ronaldo and is second only to Portuguese Ronaldo’s freakish firing rate. Sublime effort.

Bale also comes up second best in the games played for Real, despite supposedly being injured all too often and more interested in playing golf. He’s also won the most trophies out of all the names listed, which proves just how key he has been in Real’s trophy hunt over the last decade.

Nobody will ever forget his bicycle kick against Liverpool in the 2018 Champions League final, either. Exceptional.

It’s fair to say that while Bale’s time as a Madridista did still leave some to be desired, his stats prove that he should rightly be considered just as much of a legend as those he is compared to above.

The fact Bale carved out such an incredible legacy at the club and is still considered to have flopped shows just how sublime a player he was in his pomp. Hopefully we can see him continue to pull off such spellbinding performances for Wales as he gears up for his first ever World Cup, and for LAFC.