Real Madrid Interview in 'El País'

Real Madrid's Welsh flyer, Gareth Bale, has revealed how he played through the pain barrier for much of last season.

The winger had to take painkillers on a regular basis to ensure that he could turn out for Los Blancos.

He admits that in hindsight, he could've taken more time to recover but wanted to be out on the pitch with his teammates.

"On the one hand, it's easy to say that I should have rested more, but when you've been injured for three months and you see your teammates playing, you really want to get back out there and that's what I did," he said to El Pais.

" I had to take a lot of painkillers to play and yes, now I think I should have taken more time to recover so I could have played much better and be able to do all those things that I was unable to because of the ankle pain."