Peter Crouch says 34-year-old was a complete ‘joke’ in Tottenham training

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Gareth Bale eventually became one of world football’s biggest superstars, but to begin with, at Tottenham, he struggled.

While it’s a long time ago now, Bale initially couldn’t buy a win at Spurs, going through an incredible run without a victory in a lilywhite shirt, and many questioned his ability.

However, while fans and pundits may have questioned Bale at the time, according to Peter Crouch, speaking on the Official Tottenham Hotspur Podcast, the Spurs squad knew from day one how brilliant Bale would become.

Indeed, according to Crouch, Bale was fantastic in training every single day at Spurs, and it was just a matter of time before he showed it on the pitch.

Bale was fantastic

Crouch spoke about what it was like to train with a young Bale.

“In training he was brilliant, he was our best player every day. We were like this kid is a joke. We were just waiting for the whole world to catch up and understand how good he was. Then he became a man, started getting better and better, showing in games what he showed in training, and then the two Inter Milan games were where he arrived. What he did to Maicon, he destroyed him,” Crouch said.

“He became something that we had never seen before, he was just ridiculous.”

“You even saw it at Real Madrid, just an unbelievable athlete, a wand of a left foot, so many factors why he became the player he did. Unbelievable to play with him at that level.”

What a player

It’s not at all shocking to hear that Bale was unreal in Spurs training from day one.

This is a player who always seemed to have something of a god-given talent, and while it took him a while to get going, he always had something special in his locker.

Bale is arguably the greatest British footballer in history, and while he never won the Premier League with Tottenham, he’s certainly one of the best players to ever play in this competition.