Cardiff City, Tottenham, Newcastle, even retire - the options for Gareth Bale as stellar Real Madrid career ends

A fifth Champions League final pocketed, Gareth Bale teams up with Wales in the next 24 hours for an even more important date with destiny as he seeks to fire his country to the World Cup.

Bale may get some game-time against Poland on Wednesday night as Wales kick off their new Nations League campaign, but Welsh boss Rob Page will be wrapping his captain in cotton wool for next Sunday's huge World Cup play-off with either Scotland or Ukraine.

The Wales skipper's focus is obviously on that game, but he will also be thinking about his future with a nine-year spell at Real Madrid officially over. What are his options? Here are some of them...

This is the one scenario no-one in Wales wants to see happen. For some time behind the scenes it has been mooted it's either Cardiff City or retire for Bale, pending Wales' World Cup dream.

His body has taken a battering. Remember, Bale burst through with Southampton and Wales at the age of 16 and he's been kicked from pillar to post during the intervening 16 years. That's a fair time at the top, he'll be 33 in a shade over six weeks' time.

As such, he may choose to simply hang up his boots if Wales lose their play-off final. But, of course, we don't want that to be happening.

Bale has plenty of football left in him. His remaining ambition is to play in a World Cup and, hopefully after he's led Wales to Qatar, he will need the right club to keep his fitness tip-top for November.

Who will that be?

This one simply isn't going away. It just seems bizarre to drop from Champions League winner, albeit he only played seven minutes in the tournament for Real Madrid and was an unused substitute against Liverpool, into the Championship.

But his home town Bluebirds appeal to Bale, in more ways