Real Madrid is home to some of the best players on the planet, but not everybody can fit in their squad. As a result, four players could potentially be set to leave the club on free transfers at the end of their contracts in the summer of 2022.
Every single one of the players in question is a multiple-time Champions League winner and Spanish champion, and yet they will leave the club for nothing if their contracts expire without being renewed.
Their departure will make room for the arrival of new signings for Carlo Ancelotti’s side, which may include French starboy Kylian Mbappe.
But in paying the wages to attract one of the best in the world, the club may lose two verified legends and a golden boy whose form has disappeared. The fourth player… well despite producing some of the best individual performances for Los Blancos in the modern era, he’s hated at the Bernabeu.
So here are all four players whose contracts are expiring at Real Madrid in the summer of 2022 and could be set to leave on a free transfer.
Gareth Bale
Everyone knows Bale is certain to leave Real at the end of the season and it will bring to an end one of the most bizarre spells for a player at a club in modern history;
He was crucial in winning several trophies, not forgetting four Champions Leagues, two finals of which he scored in. And yet he is despised by huge groups of their fans, seen as a parasite sucking money out of the club for not leaving whilst on huge wages.
They whistle at him when runs onto the pitch, despite all he has done for them and several Madrid legends telling them they should stop.
“I just don’t get it,” Bale said in 2020 about the boos. “Because if you’re not having a good time on the pitch, you would expect your fans to get behind you and try and make you do better because that will make them happy.
“But it seems to be they do the opposite. They just whistle you, which makes you feel worse, so you lose your confidence.
“Then you play worse, which…