Cristiano Ronaldo welcomes Gareth Bale to Real Madrid

(by Brooks Peck)

Dear Gareth,

Please allow me to formally welcome you to Real Madrid. As you can see by the look on my face, I am very happy you have joined us. I would have preferred to offer this greeting in person, but with both of us busy during the international break — you playing for Wales and me playing for a real country like Portugal — I felt it would be best to write, rather than wait until we are both in Madrid again. Especially since I don’t really know what you look like and I wouldn’t want to lower your self-esteem by not recognizing you. That’s how considerate of a teammate I am.

Much has been made about the astonishing price of your transfer, but don’t concern yourself with that. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t really care if yours was more expensive than mine or not. Though, for the sake of accuracy, I do believe that inflation over the last four years means that mine is still technically greater even if yours was for €100 million. Plus, I had the decency to complete mine early in the summer, rather than subject the world to a prolonged and tedious fight filled with unseemly tactics like not showing up at training. That alone is worth more than any amount of money. But it’s not fair to expect everyone to be a courteous gentleman, I suppose.

It is flattering that my fee is the benchmark by which yours was measured. As I’m sure you know, I have followed up that historic transfer by scoring 202 goals in 202 appearances for Real Madrid over the last four years, including no fewer than 50 goals in each of the last three season. I’m sure only a few million people will criticize you when you fail to match that high level of return on investment, since everyone else will be too busy praising my continued success. Please don’t ever feel the need to thank me for that compassionate distraction.

But this isn’t about me and the three Premier League titles, one Champions League title and Ballon d’Or I won before becoming the most expensive footballer of all time or how you have only accomplished none of that by the same age. This is just to say welcome and provide you with a friendly, written reminder not to use any of my hair products on that €2 cut of yours. I will be checking the levels in every bottle daily.

In conclusion, it’s truly a wonder to have you here and as long as you don’t get in my way, I’m sure we will achieve many great things together.

Confidently yours,

The Boss