Gareth Bale has been left out of Real Madrid squad for their Champions League second-leg round of 16 clash with Manchester City.
Madrid have announced a 24-man traveling party, including ex-Chelsea star Eden Hazard.
But as the recently crowned Spanish champions look to overturn a 2-1 deficit at the Etihad, Zinedine Zidane has not included the Welshman.
Zidane has named eight forwards in his squad – but 30-year-old Bale is not among them.
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Ex-City kid Brahim Diaz, and £60million misfit Luka Jovic have been included. As has young defender Javier Hernandez.
Club captain Sergio Ramos, who is fighting to be fit, also makes it.
Bale isn’t the only first-team outcast not called upon by Zidane as Colombian playmaker James Rodriguez and striker Mariano Diaz have both also been left at home.
Like Bale, Zidane is keen to cut ties with the pair.
But as Madrid head to Manchester needing to win 2-0, it is the absence of a potential match-winner in Bale that will take the headlines.
Certainly, he was never likely to start.
But with sides allowed to have 12 players on the substitutes bench in the remainder of the competition, it had seemed more than plausible that Bale – a man who has scored crucial goals in two European Cup finals – would be included.
