Gareth Bale almost joined Wolves

Former Wolves striker Kevin Doyle - who will face off against Bale when the Republic of Ireland play Wales on Friday - said the superstar very nearly joined him at Molineux in 2009.

Doyle had just moved to Wolves for £6.5million from Reading.

And were it not for an injury to a Spurs player, the man who would become the most expensive in football history when he joined Madrid from Spurs for £85m in 2013 would have played in gold and black.

Doyle said: "I remember he was nearly coming to us on loan in one of the transfer windows.

"That shows how far he has come in the last six or seven years. But I think that someone got injured at Spurs and the deal fell through."

At that point Bale was struggling to make an impact at Spurs. The Premier League side failed to register a single victory in Bale's first 24 appearances for the club.

But he started to play in a more advanced position in that 2009/10 season - and the following season was his big breakthrough when he famously scored a hat-trick in the San Siro against Inter Milan.