You may have heard that Gareth Bale has been whistled by the Real Madrid fans recently. You might have heard it a little less if you had actually been at the Santiago Bernabéu. At the stadium where they whistled Alfredo Di Stéfano and where they whistled Zinedine Zidane they have whistled the Welshman too but not as loudly, as incessantly or as unanimously as you may have heard.

“I don’t think Gareth heard whistles,” Carlo Ancelotti insisted this week and he was probably right too. The noise from the supporters has not been as deafening as the debate that has emerged, a debate that at times seems plain bizarre.

“Still awaiting Bale” ran one headline this week of the man who in a single year has won the European Cup, the Copa del Rey, the European Super Cup and the World Club Cup, scoring in three of the four finals and providing an assist in the one in which he did not score. “The fans are annoyed,” wrote the editor of one sports daily. Not nearly as annoyed as some appear to be making out.

It all started during Real Madrid’s 3-0 victory over Espanyol three weeks ago. Bale had produced a brilliant pass for the first goal and scored the second with a superb free-kick. But late in the second half he was sent running through only to put the ball wide. Alongside him Cristiano Ronaldo was calling for the ball and when he did not get it the response from the Portuguese was furious, raising his arms and his voice, the anger externalised for all to see.

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The previous week in Valencia Bale had taken a shot when he could have passed to Karim Benzema. The word they would start using was chupón, greedy. The whistles from the stands started. How many joined in is impossible to estimate with any real accuracy but the numbers were reasonably significant and when some fans chanted his name soon afterwards as a gesture of support, others replied with more whistles. And so it began. In subsequent games, if passes went astray or shots were taken on, a noise went round. More a murmur than a whistle, a handful rather than a stand full, but a hint of reproach.

Bale had done little to warrant criticism. On both occasions it was not just that he was entitled to shoot, it was that he was right to do so: frankly, passing would have been the wrong option. But that is the way of the crowd at Madrid. It is just how they are; Di Stéfano talked about how even in the 1950s when things were not perfect “it was bitter”.

“Bale probably feels stupefaction at the Latin character,” Juanma Trueba wrote in the sports daily AS. “He was whistled during one of his most complete games. The first goal was born of a long, fabulous pass from him, like a golf swing. He scored the second with an extraordinary free-kick. And between them there were gallops, good movement and measured crosses, even with his right foot. Not enough, according to part of the Bernabéu.”

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Others were less charitable. Two weeks later, with Ronaldo sent off and Madrid seconds away from a damaging draw at Córdoba, Bale produced the run that drew the foul that earned the free-kick that he took that drew the handball that won the penalty that he scored that rescued the team. He had scored again and he kept on scoring, kept on assisting too. The move that set up Benzema against Real Sociedad last week was wonderful.

And yet … and yet the debates continued and some seemed almost willing the fans to whistle, straining to hear it and record it. Before Madrid’s midweek game against Sevilla, the first three questions in the pre-match press conference were about Bale and all carried the whiff of accusation. There is something slightly false about the debate: a fleeting frustration from fans, real enough, repackaged as rejection. It is not.

A foreigner who does not understand, he is an easy target. The most expensive player ever can expect to demand greater scrutiny and raise higher expectations. There is a particular football palate and it even took Ronaldo a long time to win over the supporters. It is true that Bale can sometimes appear removed from the collective functioning of the team, that on the right he can sometimes turn into traffic and that the sensations do not always match the stats exactly. But he has repeatedly proven decisive and some of the accusations are absurd.

Gareth Bale scores the winner in the Copa del Rey final

It is as if he has been a failure when in fact it is hard to recall a player arriving and being such a success. Four trophies in his first year and that winning goal in the cup final: 59 metres in 7.04 seconds. In his first start he got two goals and two assists and he has carried on in the same manner since: 22 goals and 19 assists in 44 games last season, 14 goals and eight assists in 30 games so far this. “Relax, Bale is playing well: he is having a fantastic season,” Ancelotti said.

Ancelotti also said that if they are fit, Bale, Benzema and Ronaldo will always play. That includes Saturday afternoon against Atlético, another chance to win over the fans who will be mourning the loss of their favourite Sergio Ramos who has suffered a hamstring tear that could keep him out for up to six weeks. It won’t be easy: you have to go back six derbies for the last time Atlético lost to Real. But then that was the European Cup final, the night Madrid won the décima after a 12-year wait that felt like an eternity. Oh, and when the winning goal was scored by Gareth Bale.