Bale

Well he is a bong
But bongs hate each other and make different national teams
Never understood that

people forget he was injury prone as fuck at spurs too, he just had one year injury free during which he finally showed his full potential, madrid bought him and outside his first year there he's barely been fully fit for 3-4 months at a time, so he's not getting any form. he's still clutch as fuck and elite when he's not injured, see last years champions league final, euro 2016 in which he was probably the best player at the tournament etc.

Well, because the national teams were founded in an era where international football wasn't as broad in scope as it is now.

We needed different teams for England, Wales, Scotland and (at that point in time) Ireland so that the "home nations" as they are called could all play each other.

In the modern era, it could never ever be fathomed that there would be a Great Britain team in regular international football due to
1. Welsh/Scottish/NI people would kick up a storm as plenty of them are separatists and don't identify as British, or even if they do they dont want to share a team with England
2. Welsh/Scottish/NI football isn't the same standard as England, so unless a quota was imposed, a GB team would be dominated by Anglos

Despite the trophies at real mad, reckon he regrets leaving spurs right now?

Makes sense
What If Bale joined England NT then? Would be hated by welsh people but could play WCs and even win one, don't know what I would do.

The 4 British FAs have been around for longer than FIFA and control 50% of the Rules of the Game.
If there was any combination of the different teams and associations it would give FIFA the excuse to strip power off them.
The other problem is how to pick the teams. It's easier for something like the British Lions rugby team because all 4 countries are at least half decent at the sport so you can have a bit of representation from each, but the footballing gulf between say England and N. Ireland is enormous. Do you simply pick the best XI and piss off sections of the crowd that won't have any national representation or legislate that you need at least 1 token player from each of the 4 nations (thus possibly making the team weaker).
Having said that as a Welshfag I wouldn't mind some kind of joint team on a special one-off occasion, maybe 2030 for the 100th anniversary of the WC? Or just a couple of international friendlies?

If he doesn't have space to run and shoot he's useless. This has always been the case

Bale had the choice to join England when he was young but turned it down, think he had an English grandmother which would have made him eligible.

for people who don't just think about their careers it's a pretty easy choice, 99.99% of people identify as one nationality and would choose that team. only people that don't are people who are desperate to play international football so choose a smaller nation they are eligible for so to guarantee caps.

He achieved as much with Wales as he ever would with England, basically carried them to the Euro semis. He's much better off having done that than having to deal with the media cancer of playing for England.

My point is, playing a WC is the highest point of a player
If he was English, would play 3 or 4 WCs
In Wales, he will have to struggle to play 1, already missed 2 in his prime
Don't know what the problem of Wales, have a good team but can't do It, I think even Ireland is more near to playing WC than Wales

This. Better to be the big fish in a small pond and overachieve as a plucky underdog team than deal with the English tabloids overhyping you to hell and then shitting on you as soon as you fail. His Welsh team got just as far in Euro 2016 as England have got in any international competition since 1966, and they did it without the massive weight of expectation that drags down the England lads in every single campaign
The guy's won 4 Champion's Leagues anyway so i'm not shedding too many tears for him

His strength resides in his hair. He's getting weaker as he's balding.

The unavoidable choking with England in the WC is not the highest point of any player's career. I bet most of them dread playing for the NT

>le 29 year old british prospect

Bump.

Burn wood is Welsh Pele you know.

>(any white nationality) Pele
>not a flop

Messi is the white Pele

To be honest Rooney wasn't a flop but also wasn't the player the English media sayed it was
Don't know If Beckham was called "White Pelé" or "english Pelé" too but probable, he's the most overrated player of all time

He doesn’t suit possession based football which is where the game is going. He’s the perfect counter attacking player but Madrid doesn’t play that way anymore.

Ronaldo on the other hand is a poacher whereas Bale isn’t. Simply put, the game has moved away from his style of play.