You get the feeling that the Premier League really needs Gareth Bale right now.
Of course, the greatest league the galaxy has ever known (or however it is currently marketed) features many elite footballers. Robin van Persie is a sublime striker in rich form, while Luis Suarez shimmers with impish menace. There are others, too. But the league lacks that one special attacking talent that it had, say, five years ago in Cristiano Ronaldo or a decade ago with Thierry Henry. Not just a world-class footballer, but a player who leaves your mouth agape with childish wonder as he performs feats the likes of which you'd not seen before. Someone who makes you turn on the TV and endure Match of the Day's pundits every weekend just to answer the question: so, what has he done this week?
"I've
watched Ronaldo in the past and you do take things from other people's
games to try to improve as a player, which I have, hopefully"
Gareth Bale
"I think anybody would love to be mentioned alongside the best in the world," says Bale when Sport asks him about the hype surrounding his recent performances. "It's flattering, but I don't really look too much into it. I don't get the newspapers or read too many reports, so I don't really know how much hype there is. Obviously my friends tell me things, but I just treat every day as normal and focus on my job."
The two Ronnies
Cristiano Ronaldo is often listed as the player Bale admires the most and he admits to picking up a few tips from the Real Madrid number seven. "I don't model my game on his, because I have my own way of playing and it's not exactly the same," says Bale. "But we do have similar attributes. I just like watching the best players: seeing Messi and Ronaldo. I've watched Ronaldo in the past and you do take things from other people's games to try to improve as a player, which I have, hopefully."
While he's improved to the point that he is playing the best football of his career, Bale's path to this point hasn't been smooth. At Southampton, he was a lauded teenage talent with a knack for spectacular set pieces. Manchester United were apparently interested in signing him, but Bale chose to go to Spurs in 2007. Why?
"They wanted to me to play first team football straight away," he explains. "That was the main factor in me going to Tottenham." Given that, it must have been tough when he struggled to get a consistent run in the team during his early seasons. "It was," he admits. "I think I'd been there for about six months and got a bad foot injury, which I was out for about eight months with and obviously the change of manager during the time I was injured wasn't ideal. It was a difficult time, but I knew in myself that I was capable of doing what I've done since."
He has needed his quiet self-assurance. As far away as it seems now, Bale was once just a young left-back who wasn't fulfilling his early promise. He was probably best known for the widely reported stat that Spurs failed to win any of the first 24 league games in which he was first involved. His displays steadily improved over the 2009/10 season, but it was operating on the left wing during the following year's Champions League campaign that his gifts caught the attention of the wider football world.
Bale's stunning second-half hat-trick for 10-man Tottenham in a 4-3 loss at holders Inter showcased his power, control, speed and deliciously sweet striking of the ball. Maicon, a Brazilian international right back with 66 caps to his name, was dismantled. Rumours persisted that he signed for Manchester City last summer, but we are sure he's wandering around the San Siro in a daze to this day, asking anyone he sees pass by if they got the details of the Welsh express train that ran over him. Repeatedly.
Taking on the best
"It's been frustrating," Bale admits when asked about not being in the Champions League since that season's run to the quarter finals. "Last year, we did finish fourth and I think we felt a bit cheated out of not being in the Champions League. All the boys who have had a taste of that competition know exactly what it's like: the stadiums, the clubs you play and the atmosphere is unbelievable. You're competing against the best."
Bale offers a rueful smile when asked whether he watched the 2012 Champions League final, the match that confirmed Spurs would miss out on a crack at the tournament this season. "Yeah, I watched it," he says. "I was hoping for Bayern to win and they should have! They battered them and then obviously when Robben missed that penalty, it was just one of those things. You just thought then Chelsea were bound to win."
Despite Tottenham's fourth-place finish, the summer of 2012 saw a change in the club's management as Harry Redknapp was replaced by the 35-year-old Andre Villas-Boas. Bale admits the move was a surprise, but insists the squad were positive about the new manager coming in. "Harry was more, 'go out there and play how you feel and express yourself'," he says when asked about the differences between the two. "With Andre, there's a certain shape and a style we play. I think Harry was more free and let you do what you want. Andre does that too, but there's a lot more tactical work. I think it's something that's good to learn. We've done well this year and I think that's down to our defending as well as attacking."
Attacking is something Bale has been doing an increasingly amount of as his career has progressed. Signed from Southampton as a dynamic left-back, he gradually moved up to the left wing. That was until last season, when Harry Redknapp began to play him more in the centre, a pattern that has been followed by Villas-Boas. Tottenham fans originally made their own preference for his position heard with the chant: 'Gareth Bale, he plays on the left...', but where does Bale feel his strongest position is?
"Not left-back anymore, that is all I do know," he says with a chuckle. "Starting out wide was good. But when people get to know you, they start to stop the threat, start to double up, even triple up on you. I think you have to learn a different way to play. Some teams try to mark me out of the game but, if I'm able to move all over the pitch, players can't always follow me. My being given more of a free role is enabling me to do what I do on the left, down the middle or even on the right. All over the pitch, really."
Simulation storm
It's probably an understatement to say that Bale is enjoying that freedom and his football in general right now. Watching him in his pre-interview photo shoot, cheekily flicking mud off his new adidas boots at his agent and laughing as the photographer guides him on how to celebrate a goal (it's a skill he already has, we suspect), he looks an athlete in the peak of health. However, even the brightest career has dark clouds.
Last season, Bale was booked three times for simulation, or diving, as most fans call it. It's a matter he felt so strongly about that he discussed it with Premier League referee Andre Marriner when he visited Tottenham's training ground. Rather than shying away from the issue, Bale is keen to put his point across when asked for the gist of what he said to Marriner.
"I don't mind talking about it. The way I see it is: if you're running with pace and I stick a foot out to trip you up, you're not going to run over my foot, you're going to try and get out the way. And when you're going at speed and you move your leg out the way, it's almost impossible to get your leg back forward again to start running, so you do go over. I think it's a case of me getting out of the way and trying to avoid contact, trying to avoid injury, which I have had in the past from tackles. If I'd known how to do this earlier, maybe I wouldn't have been injured so much.
"If somebody is literally not even trying to tackle you and you go over, then that's a dive," he explains. "But if someone does lunge in, I'm not going to let myself potentially get hurt. I'm going to get out of the way. And, in doing that, you sometimes fall over. I suppose it probably does look like a dive‚ you can see where the officials are coming from, but I explained to him [Marriner] where I'm coming from. Obviously referees have different opinions to each other, and I've spoken to a few. Some agree with me, and some don't agree with me so much. It's just a matter of opinion, really. It's never bothered me and, if it stops me getting injured, I'm not going to stop doing it."
Pride of north London
One fixture that often sees challenges flying in is Tottenham versus Arsenal. The two teams clash this Sunday, and it's a match Bale relishes. "The atmosphere is electric all the time," he says. "With every tackle, every moment, the fans are celebrating like it's a goal. It's great to be involved in and they usually end up being very good games."
The north London derby certainly has a knack for producing high-scoring encounters, but Spurs were on the losing side of the seven-goal match at the Emirates last season. "I don't think the 5-2 really affects this game," Bale insists [speaking ahead of the 2012/13 return fixture at White Hart Lane]. "We had 10 men for 73 minutes, which isn't easy especially at the Emirates against probably one of the best footballing teams. We just want to take all three points in this one, especially being at home. It's a massive game and Arsenal are probably the one team we want to beat more than anything."
Bale talks glowingly of Spurs as a club that has "got stronger every year since I've been here. I think the standard of players is going up and up. We're still progressing now, and hopefully there's a lot more to come."
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