Former Real Madrid winger Steve McManaman has said Gareth Bale must make the effort to adapt to life in Spain if he is to be a success at the club.
The Liverpudlian, who famously scored for Los Blancos in the European Cup final against Valencia, was a huge success in Spain and is remembered fondly by Madridistas.
Now a pundit on television, McManaman said his success was largely down to breaking free of the goldfish bowl the players live in, and forcing himself to learn Spanish and get used to the culture.
And he stated Gareth Bale will have to do the same eventually.
He said: “We had a driver who took us everywhere, translated for us and did everything we needed. But Victoria, my girlfriend at the time and now my wife, and I felt we had no time to ourselves. So we decided that for the time in Spain to work we had to break free from all the attention.”
McManaman added that while there were times they found the experience frustrating, such as when they were in restaurants ‘flapping our arms to try to explain to the waiter that we wanted chicken,’ they wouldn’t change anything they did in their attempts to integrate.
