Real Madrid may have paid Tottenham Hotspur a world-record transfer fee to sign Gareth Bale for his incredible skills with a football, but we’ve got exclusive evidence that he is equally special when it comes to kicking a rugby ball.
Open the player above to watch the £86 million man size up a chipped cross before hammering an astonishing volley from the edge of the area straight into a water bottle placed on the angle of crossbar and post by former Spurs team-mate Luka Modric.
Just to reinforce the point, Bale then unleashes a drop-kick with the kind of unerring accuracy that even countryman Leigh Halfpenny, the famously dead-eyed full-back for the Wales rugby union team, would be proud of.
Both pieces of fancy footwork draw audible gasps of amazement from Real colleagues Modric, Karim Benzema and Jese, who also show off some fancy footwork with the oval-shaped ball, plus a squash ball and an exercise ball.
Bale’s impressive training ground display serves as a timely reminder of his talents ahead of the first El Clasico of the season this weekend, for which he could return to the Madrid starting line-up after recovering from a thigh injury.
Home advantage sees Barcelona as the current 39/50 favourites to win the battle of La Liga’s two behemoths, with the draw available at 14/5 and Los Merengues ranked as 3/1 outsiders.
But regardless of what happens at the Nou Camp on Saturday, if you like what you see in the video, be sure to keep a close eye on news.bwin.com/en/ and the official bwin YouTube, Facebook and Twitter channels.
Bale and his Bernabeu buddies were strutting their stuff for the first instalment of a brand new initiative, the bwin Skills Series, so there will be plenty more where that came from in the coming months.
Through our partnerships with Real Madrid, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Marseille and Anderlecht, we will be challenging stars who regularly grace the Champions League to show just how good they really are with our range of technique-based assignments.
The results, as already shown by our quartet of galacticos, are likely to be spectacular.
