The next loop of the Gareth Bale rumor roller coaster is finally here: according to rumors in England, Manchester United and Real Madrid are working on a massive deal involving a swap of Bale for David De Gea and £50 million. Rumors have had United coveting Bale for some time now, and Real Madrid supposedly see De Gea as the heir to Iker Casillas, so it makes sense, right? Uh. Sure. Why not.
A rumor for the laugh track: Manchester United working on Gareth Bale swap
When rumors of huge swap deals between big clubs start getting thrown around, you know silly season is in full swing.
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While we're at it, why doesn't Pepe Reina head to Scunthorpe United to fill their goalkeeping hole? Or send Lionel Messi to Liverpool to help them at striker? Maybe Kun Aguero to Perth Glory, just because? Those all make about as much sense as this rumored swap.
Why it makes sense
Really the only reason this makes sense is because it’s just crazy enough to be something Manchester United and Real Madrid would do. Neither club has exactly been a bastion of stability -- or sanity at times -- over the past few years. If any pair of teams is going to make a deal this ludicrous happen, it’s these two. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it would actually make sense, just that these clubs have a history of being insane.
Why it doesn’t make sense
First off, swap deals of this magnitude are fun to make rumors about, they are incredibly rare. They’re incredibly complex deals that are very difficult to actually pull off; there’s simply too many things that can go wrong to kill the deal.
Most of all, though, it’s just silly. If a move like this ever happens, why now? Why in January? Why would Madrid weaken their attack in the middle of the season? Sure, they have incredible attacking depth, but for all the skill of James Rodriguez or Isco, they can’t replace the things that Bale does on the pitch. Their place at the top of La Liga is heavily contested this season, and they’re going to be in for a hell of a fight in the Champions League. They need Bale more than they need a third quality goalkeeper right now.
And why would Manchester United kick their top goalkeeper to the curb? They’re in the middle of a resurgent season after last year’s bitter disappointment, so dumping one of the best young goalkeepers on the planet is simply stupid. Sure, yeah, they just signed Victor Valdes to back him up, but he hasn’t played since March because of a serious knee injury, and his form had been wildly variable for quite some time before that. United have absolutely no guarantee that he can capably replace De Gea, and it’s not like Anders Lindegaard is going to do the job.
Again, if this move happens, it makes so much more sense to do it in the summer than in the middle of the season. Yes, these are both teams who could sign replacements for their departing players, but in the middle of the season it would be very difficult to get those replacements, whereas if this gets done early in the summer, they’d have months to find someone and work out a deal, with far less pressure and urgency involved.
Likelihood it happens
The officially estimated odds of winning the Powerball lottery drawing in the USA is 1 in 175,223,510. For all the sense and sanity involved in this deal -- otherwise known as none -- that sounds about right. You can very much see both of these teams making such a swap, but in the end, a decision maker on one side or the other will stop and say “Wait, what are we doing? This is stupid.” And with that, the deal will be dead. Assuming it ever existed in the first place, which, frankly, it probably doesn’t. So with all that in mind, we’re giving this one a 0.5 out of 10. Though if we’re going on a laughs scale, it’s easily worth 10 out of 10.
