Gareth Bale, one-man army

As Cristiano Ronaldo fretted at his teammates, frowned at his opponents and failed at a decisive penalty, his Real Madrid teammate Gareth Bale became the toast of a nation which has reached the knockout stage in their first appearance in 58 years at a major tournament.

Wales are in the last 16 of Euro 2016 with two wins out of three, topping a group which also features England and Russia. But it’s not about the points, it’s about the manner of their performances—led from the front by the talismanic Bale.

This has been a year of the underdogs, at least in football. It is a year that will be remembered for Leicester City winning the Premier League, and Atlético Madrid reaching the Champions League final. And just when you thought the underdog had had its day, out popped Wales, with Bale at the forefront of another story. All it took were two incalculably thumping, swerving, dipping free kicks, which made the goalkeeper look like a hippo chasing a cheetah. A sea of red rose in a united battle-cry: “Don’t take me home, please don’t take me home,” they sang as the unreal feeling of being in the knockouts filtered down, Welshman to Welshman, from the shiny stadiums of France to the beaches in Swansea.

The No.11 is now the tournament’s outright top goalscorer, with three goals in three matches. The last time a player scored that many goals at a group stage was at Euro 2004, when Ruud van Nistelrooy (the Netherlands) and Milan Baroš (Czech Republic) were on fire. He’s also the only player, apart from French greats Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane, and German Thomas Hässler, to have scored two free kicks at a single European Championship. Another will give him an unprecedented dead-ball record even David Beckham would be proud of.

But this is no one-trick pony. Against Russia, after four staggering run-and-shoot attempts, Bale also showed that composure in front of the goal is part of his increasingly threatening arsenal. He collected a pass from Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey and slotted it past Igor Akinfeev with the outside of his foot nonchalantly, his man bun bobbing behind him as he continued to convince the world that he was worth the world-record fee of €100 million (about ₹ 760 crore today) Real Madrid paid Tottenham three years ago.

This is someone who started as left-back and is now just six goals short of becoming Wales’ all-time top scorer. Forget Ryan Giggs and George Best, here is a Welshman, who, as Jeremy Wilson puts it for The Telegraph, has not just “accepted his opportunity so far for Wales at Euro 2016, (but) has been seizing it with every sinew of his body”.

“He has previously likened the experience of playing for Wales to a kickabout with his mates and, in the way that he personally dominated the game and raised himself beyond all others, it sometimes did resemble what you might see on a park or school playing field,” Wilson writes.

Bale has shot better (80% accuracy to Ronaldo’s 40%), tackled better (an 8% success rate compared to Ronaldo’s zero attempts), beat defenders with stunning ease (81% take-on success to Ronaldo’s 33%) and even headed better (48% of headers won to Ronaldo’s 33%) than the three-time World Player of the Year. When it has come down to man against goalkeeper, Bale has struck with devastating effect. On the other hand, Ronaldo missed against Austria from the penalty spot.

There must be no doubt about Bale slowly swooping down on the Portuguese captain’s status as the most threatening one-man army in European football.

He’s also beating Ronaldo at the art of speaking.

A week ago, before facing England, Bale had said not a single player from Wayne Rooney’s side would make it into the Wales XI. Hours later, he scored a stunning free kick (in a sloppy 2-1 loss), making England goalkeeper Joe Hart flail his arms haplessly in mid-air before he ended on the turf, resembling an untidy pile of boots and gloves, as Bale wheeled away in celebration. So while the left-footer may not be learning how to shoot the ball from Ronaldo, he’s clearly learning how to rile his opponents and has picked up a thing or two about walking the talk. The only difference is that it doesn’t seem over-the-top cocky.

But the most damning verdict against Ronaldo is his inability to force those around him to raise their game. With him around, his team looks bogged down by the pressure of realizing their star man’s dream of winning an international tournament to seal his personal legacy. With Bale around, Liverpool’s oft-ridiculed Joe Allen looks as good as the legendary Andrea Pirlo and no, this is not about the facial hair. Ramsey, Sam Vokes and Neil Taylor all starred in the 3-0 demolition of Russia. And here’s some perspective: A report in The Guardian says that Taylor, one of the scorers against Russia, was last on target “for Wrexham against Grays in the Blue Square Bet Premier in front of 298 people in April 2010”.

There is a marked difference in personality as well. If Ronaldo shows outright disrespect to Iceland by calling them a team with a “small mentality”, Bale inspires. “I’d take playing rubbish every single game if it meant going as far as we can. It’s all about the team getting to the next round,” he said before the Russia game.

For most of the year, you’re watching them in tandem, ripping apart La Liga opponents and winning two Champions League titles in three years. Bale on the right, Ronaldo on the left, cutting in, dummying, shooting, celebrating in hugs and huddles of white kit against the backdrop of the Bernabéu. But release them as lone beasts in different settings, and the true colours show.

Ronaldo may be a sore loser whose arrogance helps him raise his game to still be considered one of the top two best players in the world. And Bale’s real test will come when the world expects from him the heroics that it does from Ronaldo. The gap, however, is closing. Bale is bombing down the left, gobbling up the ground with goals, passes and words. It’s energetic, but not erratic. It’s intense and infectious. It’s unreal but was always imaginable. And most of all, it’s with Wales.

Pulasta Dhar is an I-League commentator and news editor (sport) at Scoopwhoop. He tweets at @TheFalseNo9.