chaplin

Thursday, May 31, 2018

What was Gareth Bale thinking of?

Obviously top athletes have bodies that don't work the way ours do. But what interests me is how their brains must be wired differently too. The Gareth Bale goal against Liverpool on Saturday has had me puzzling ever since. He'd just come on the pitch and as far as I could see had only touched the ball once, to ship it from the middle out to the left, before jogging to the edge of the box, more in hope than expectation. When Marcelo's ball came in it looked as though the deflection it had taken off the defender's boot meant  it was going to land too far behind him for him to be able to do anything with it. So, a microsecond after it had begun spinning, he launched himself in the air with his back to goal thinking....what?

I know exactly how I can connect with this and put it in the top corner?

I may as well do something?

It's worth a go?

Nothing at all. He was just doing what his body told him to.

We've no way of knowing. The only thing we do know is that, unlike the rest of us, he couldn't have been thinking of the consequences of what would have happened if it had turned out the way most bicycle kicks turn out – with the ball in row Z and Ronaldo looking at him with disgust as they all trooped back to the halfway line.

It's here for those who have been living in a cave.

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