GARETH BALE RESPONDED angrily to his description in a Spanish newspaper as “a Welsh parasite” after his two goals put Wales on the brink of their first World Cup in 64 years.

The Real Madrid forward came into the crucial play-off semi-final with Austria having missed the 4-0 defeat to bitter rivals Barcelona, with a Marca journalist then launching a scathing assessment of his current situation in the Spanish capital.

Bale was accused of “sucking euros” from Madrid with the newspaper also producing an image of Bale as a mosquito to accompany the article

And following Wales’ stunning 2-1 win over Austria, in which Bale scored the two crucial goals, he denied there was no message behind his first goal celebration, in which he appeared to shout “suck that” down the camera.

“No. No. I don’t need to send a message, honestly. It’s a waste of my time. It’s disgusting and they should also be ashamed of themselves. I’m not fussed,” he told Sky Sports, admitting he was struggling towards the end of the intense clash.

I had some cramp at the end which I guess is normal. I’ll run into the ground for this country and we all did it tonight. It’s fantastic, half the job done.

“I guess the good thing now is that we can enjoy tonight because the game 9World Cup play-off final) will be in June. We’ll enjoy tonight but only half the job done. There’s a still a very tough game to come against either Scotland or Ukraine.

Teammate Aaron Ramsey also suffered the effects of the gruelling 90 minutes, but praised the support of the home fans for the crucial final quarter of an hour.

“You know, it makes it so much easier playing in front of these fans. When they’re singing for the last 10, 15 minutes, they get you through it and it’s a pleasure to play in front of these fans. They gave it everything, we gave it everything and we’ve got the result in the end.”