Gareth Bale admits adjusting to life ‘under the microscope’ and learning Spanish have been his biggest challenges at Real Madrid.
The Welshman has developed into a key player for Los Blancos since completing a world-record transfer from Tottenham two years ago, and he insists his transition into becoming a Galactico was an easy one.
“It’s important to have variety: we all bring different strengths to the team,” he told Sport magazine.
“We have a strong squad, but more than that we have the right mixture as well. I think that is showing more and more this season, now that we’ve all started to gel together.
“[La Liga] is more tactical, a lot of passing – whereas the Premier League is very fast, very physical.
“On the football pitch, I always felt comfortable. A new language was probably the biggest challenge, to be honest.
“The important thing is that I now understand the team talks and what people are saying.
“It’ll still be a bit of time before I’m able to speak Spanish better, but I have lessons every week and I’m improving all the time.
“But when it comes to football, I’ve always had confidence in myself and my ability.
“One bonus about playing for Real Madrid is the opportunities the team creates. In the Premier League, some teams had started to double-up, even triple-up on me.
“It’s not impossible to deal with, but I’d have to adjust my position or my play. Now, if a team were to double up on Cristiano [Ronaldo] or to double up on me, it just gives space for one of the others.
“It makes it really hard to defend against us, because we always have someone who’ll take advantage.
“There’s a lot more focus on Real Madrid. Being here is like being under a microscope. They have whole newspapers that are dedicated to Real Madrid.
“But that’s just part of being a Real Madrid player – you get used to it.
“As much as we wanted to win it for La Decima, we’re equally hungry to retain [the Champions League].
“Whichever tournament we’re going into, whether we’ve won it in previous years or not, we want to win it. We’ll be trying our best to do it, and I believe that we can.”
