'That was the end': How a Spurs legend showed Paul Scholes he had made a 'mistake' coming back to football
Paul Scholes came out of retirement to have one last swansong with Manchester United, but the performance of one Tottenham Hotspur star at the time made him realise he was done with football.
Gareth Bale pushed Paul Scholes to his limit
Having initially called time on his playing career in 2011, Paul Scholes made a surprising U-turn a year later and came back to Old Trafford for another stint under Sir Alex Ferguson.
It was a successful return, too, with Manchester United lifting the Premier League title in the 2012/13 season before Scholes officially hung up his boots for good.
But, there was one game during that campaign where Scholes felt he had made a big error in judgement, and it was all down to the incredible performance levels of Tottenham Hotspur legend Gareth Bale.
Paul Scholes explains Gareth Bale nightmare
In an appearance on the Football’s Greatest podcast, Scholes discussed the meeting with Tottenham and how Bale ran him ragged so much that he felt the effects for days afterwards.
Scholes said: “I actually thought the first time I retired would be the end. I came back for six months originally and then the manager [Ferguson] wanted me to stay for another season and I think that was a mistake.
“I think it was the first home game of my last season, against Tottenham. I remember I didn’t actually play that badly but I remember playing against Gareth Bale. Now this could have happened to me when I was 21 but he was just starting to burst and he was flying. I remember him going past me two or three times and I knew I couldn’t compete with that, I had absolutely no chance.”
At the time, Bale was just hitting his best for Spurs, and would later move on to Real Madrid at the end of that season. Not before making Scholes rue the day he carried on playing, though.
Scholes added: “I was in the ice bath later and I could’ve been in there for two days, I could barely move for three or four days. That’s when I knew that was the end. It was a mistake to play that season.”
To be fair to Scholes, Gareth Bale effectively ended a few careers during his time, including most notably, Maicon, during that iconic performance against Inter Milan. There’s no shame in being overran by Bale during his peak years.
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