2006-08 Southampton Home Shirt Bale 22 Rookie [Excellent] 2XL

2006-08 Southampton Home Shirt Bale 22, the red and white Saints design from Gareth Bale’s breakthrough into professional football. Finished with his original number 22 nameset and Flybe.com sponsor, this shirt comes from the very beginning of a career that would eventually deliver five Champions League titles, three La Liga crowns and some of the defining European performances of his generation.

2 light clicks front of shirt [Pictured]

The shirt uses Southampton’s traditional red and white vertical stripes with black shoulder panels, black collar and matching sleeve trim. The embroidered club crest, Saints manufacturer branding and colourful Flybe.com sponsor give it an unmistakable mid-2000s Championship look, while the black and gold Football League-style Bale 22 print gives the reverse its defining finish.

Bale made his professional debut for Southampton against Millwall on 17 April 2006, aged just 16 years and 275 days, becoming the second-youngest player to represent the club at the time. Starting out as an attacking left-back, his pace and extraordinary ability from set pieces quickly separated him from a normal academy breakthrough. During 2006-07 he became a first-team regular, scored five goals, helped Southampton reach the Championship play-offs and was named Football League Young Player of the Year before Tottenham signed him in May 2007.

What followed makes the Bale 22 shirt particularly compelling. He developed from Southampton teenager into a two-time PFA Players’ Player of the Year at Tottenham, then moved to Real Madrid and won the Champions League five times, scoring one of the competition’s great final goals with his overhead kick against Liverpool in 2018. He also captained Wales through the most successful period of their modern history, including the Euro 2016 semi-final. Before Bale 11 at Madrid and the global superstar years, there was Bale 22 at Southampton, the shirt from where his professional story began.