His club career might be stuck in limbo but at least Gareth Bale can find some respite from his Spanish woes away on international duty. Unwanted and unloved at Real Madrid, Bale always finds solace with Wales and has been called into the squad to face Finland and Bulgaria in September's Uefa Nations League games. This is despite fact the 31-year-old barely featured for Zinedine Zidane's side last season, starting just 14 games in all competitions. Bale featured twice for Madrid after the restart of Spanish football in June following the coronavirus lockdown but played just 48 minutes of Real Madrid's 12 games. His relationship with Zidane is non existent and the French manager even left Bale out of the squad completely as the Spanish champions were<a href="https://www.thenational.ae/sport/football/gabriel-jesus-impresses-pep-guardiola-as-manchester-city-stun-real-madrid-in-pictures-1.1060584"> knocked out of the Champions League by Manchester City</a>. Wales manager Ryan Giggs admitted last week that his star attacker – who has 33 goals from 83 appearances for his country – might struggle to play two games on the trot. "I'm just monitoring the situation. When Gareth gets on camp, I will speak to him," Giggs said. "He always turns up to camp fit and raring to go. OK, he might not sometimes be match fit and able to bang out two 90 minutes in a short space of time, which again isn't ideal, but it something he has managed quite well over the last 18 months. "He wants to play every game. Since I took over, he's been playing at Madrid and I've picked him, also he's not been playing regularly and I've picked him." Bale has been linked with a move back to England and his former club Tottenham Hotspur of late but it looks increasingly likely he could just run down the final year of his Real contract. His salary with Los Blancos is €15 million (Dh65.5m) a year.