Zinédine Zidane has humiliated Gareth
Bale by leaving him out of the Real Ma-
drid squad for tomorrow’s Champions
League match against Manchester City
even though Eden Hazard’s participa-
tion is in doubt through injury.
Real announced yesterday that Bale
will not be among the 24-man party
that will travel to Manchester this
evening for the second leg of their
round-of-16 tie.
The 31-year-old forward, who joined
Real in 2013 from Tottenham Hotspur,
believes he may now not play for the
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The recycled paper content of
UK newspapers in 2019 was 63.2%Bale humiliated by Zidane
Paul Hirst club again while Zidane is manager, but
has no plans to seek a move away. He
has won the Champions League four
times with the Spanish champions but
has never seen eye to eye with Zidane
during the Frenchman’s two spells as
manager at the Bernabéu.
Zidane, a former Real player, has
selected eight forwards in his squad to
face Manchester City, including
Hazard, but left out Bale. The Wales
international is not injured and trained
with the rest of his team-mates in Ma-
drid yesterday. His omission from the
squad is the latest sign that Zidane is de-
termined to drive him out of the club.
Bale, who has two years left on his
£650,000-a-week contract, was also
left out of Real’s squad for their last
game of the league season and was an
unused substitute in the previous six
matches.
His relationship with Zidane is said to
be beyond repair, with the two men
having clashed on numerous occasions.
Despite that, the forward is expected to
stay at the club because no one will
match his wages.
Bale pretended to be sleeping on the
bench by putting his mask over his face
during his team’s recent win over
Alavés, and he cut an awkward figureduring the team’s title celebrations. He
started 12 league games, but only one
post-lockdown.
Bale’s absence is still surprising, how-
ever, given that Zidane could be
without Hazard for the return leg of the
tie with City, which the English club
lead 2-1 from the first match, because of
an ankle problem.
Hazard, 29, has started only 19 games
since his £88.5 million transfer from
Chelsea because of hamstring and
ankle troubles. The forward had an
operation on his ankle in March, but ac-
cording to sources, he is still not at full
Continued on page 602GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the timesSp ort
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chance to end major drought
Golf, pages 58-59McIlroy’s six-year itch
LEE SMITH/AFP/GETTY IMAGESPakistan’s new superstar shows his class
Babar Azam hits unbeaten 69 as England’s bowlers toil on opening day of first Test, pages 64-67Arsenal cut 55
off-field jobs
Matt Lawton, Gary JacobPark race for
marathon elite
Matt Lawton, Martyn ZieglerArsenal have become the first Premier
League club to announce major job
losses after the coronavirus
pandemic. They claimed they needed
to make 55 redundancies to continue
investing in the first team.
The cull, which a club source said will
save “many millions of pounds”, will
predominantly affect those working in
hospitality, events, commercial and
administrative positions. The club’s
scouting network, already trimmed
back in a previous round of cuts, will
also take a further hit.
Like other Premier League clubs,
Arsenal have suffered from the lack of
match-day revenue since the suspen-
sion of the Premier League in March.
Although matches resumed in June,
paying supporters will not be able to
attend games until October at the
Continued on page 63A multi-lap race between the world’s
fastest marathon runners in one of
London’s Royal Parks is expected to
replace this year’s mass-participation
Virgin Money London Marathon.
Today the 40,000 amateur runners
hoping to complete the 26.2-mile
course through the capital are likely to
be told that Covid-19 means their race
will be postponed until next year. It had
already been moved from its original
date on April 26 to October 4.
The Times understands that the orga-
nisers are still hoping to stage the
eagerly anticipated duel between the
two finest marathon runners in history,
Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele,
on a short course in one of the parks in
central London.
That, sources said, is the main option
Continued on page 60Babar whips the ball past Ollie Pope, fielding at short leg, as Jos Buttler, the England wicketkeeper, and Ben Stokes watch. The Pakistan batsman was in imperious form