Fede Valverde: “Bale took a knock, I hope he recovers soon”

Just before Zidane took to the media after Wednesday night’s Copa del Rey victory of Unionistas, Fede Valverde hinted at what Zidane confirmed later, that Gareth Bale suffered an injury during the game.

“Bale took a knock,” Valverde said. “I hope he recovers soon”.

There is no diagnosis as of yet, but as is typical with these in-game injuries, we’ll probably have more details the next day.

Valverde and Zidane echoed the same comments on both Bale, and the degree of difficulty of the match.

“They wanted to win it, and their fans will have enjoyed themselves tonight. They fought hard and we didn’t play brilliantly at times, as we would have liked, but the important thing is we’re in the next round. You have to play and enjoy yourself no matter which pitch you’re playing on.”

Zidane also alluded to the both the size and quality of the pitch as something that posed problems for the team.

“We’re not struggling for motivation. It was a difficult game on a very small pitch, but we know the motivation that the Copa del Rey brings and we want to move forward and keep winning,” Zidane said after the game. “We gave everything we had on the pitch, without dwelling on it too much, you find the motivation when you start to play and you know you have to win. Now we turn our focus to the next game”.

“The pitch doesn’t help to do as you wish, but we conducted ourselves well against a Segunda B side, who play more direct and we controlled it very well. We dealt very well with knock-downs, second balls and crosses and they didn’t create many chances”.