As Gareth Bale pulls up a chair at the Wales training camp in Brittany and talks about a once-in-a‑lifetime opportunity with his country, the world’s most expensive footballer can also see a bigger picture. For Bale, Euro 2016 is about the future as well as the present, which means creating a legacy that inspires a generation of children back home to put on a pair of football boots and try to follow in the footsteps of their heroes.
“We have had amazing players going through history and seeing the failure and even being there as fans to see us not quite qualify – it does drive you on even more,” Bale says. “Whenever I have played for Wales it has always been my dream to qualify for a major tournament and to test ourselves on the bigger stage. We are doing that now and I think we are thriving and everybody is waking up and seeing what Welsh football is about. Hopefully we can keep doing that.
“It is not just about this tournament and what is going on now, but we want to qualify for other tournaments and grow football in Wales, get other kids playing and be role models to make football even bigger in Wales. Hopefully that will give us a better national team in the future.”
For Bale this tournament has never been a personal crusade. He would love to win Euro 2016 and, make no mistake, genuinely believes that is possible. Yet the ambition that burns so fiercely inside the 26-year-old is for the greater good of his team and the country that he is so patriotic about, not with an eye to receiving any individual acclaim.
The Golden Boot is a case in point. With a goal in each group match he is tied with Spain’s Álvaro Morata as the tournament’s joint top scorer on three, one ahead of Bale’s Real Madrid team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo. Yet when the possibility of winning that award is brought up the expression on Bale’s face is one of total indifference. “I haven’t looked at the list,” he says. “I have been told that I am joint top goalscorer, but it is not really important to me. If we win every game 1-0 and we win the title and I don’t score again, then I really couldn’t care less. For me, it is just about winning, whether it is an own goal or someone else scores in our team. It is really not about me and the Golden Boot. For other players it might be important, but for me it is not. If I happen to get it, brilliant, if I don’t it is not going to change me in any way, shape or form.”
This is the fourth time that Bale has sat down for media duties since Wales arrived in the seaside town of Dinard a little under three weeks ago and the overriding impression is that he is thoroughly enjoying life and totally comfortable in his own skin. No microphones have been thrown into a lake, the little jibes at the expense of England have been accompanied by a smile and Bale is not glancing at his watch wondering how quickly he can escape being quizzed.
His record-breaking move to Madrid in 2013 seems to have shaped him on and off the field, developing him as a footballer as well as a person. Bale has won two Champions League winner’s medals in three seasons and, before one of the biggest matches in the history of Welsh football, knows better than anyone in Chris Coleman’s side how to handle huge occasions. “I have had to deal with the pressure and I suppose the more you are in that situation the more you get used to it,” he says. “I can call on my experience now – I never thought I would ever say that, I feel like I am 18 still – and use it to my advantage and help my team as well.”
Asked whether he had been through some dark moments at Madrid, Bale says: “I wouldn’t say dark; it was not like I was going to die or anything. There are times when you want to be doing better and you wish you were playing better, but ultimately you show your character more by responding to bad performances or criticism. You learn a lot more about yourself going through the difficult periods. I have been through some difficult times, but I have come out stronger, fighting and showed my character. And I will keep doing that.”
Bale has been exceptional for Wales for some time, leading the team without wearing the captain’s armband. He has scored 10 of their last 17 competitive goals, dating back to the start of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, and with Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen also so impressive in France, it is easy to see why Wales are strong favourites when they face Northern Ireland in a last-16 tie at the Parc des Princes on Saturday.
A Wales victory would take them into the quarter-finals and equal the achievement of the 1958 side that reached the last eight of the World Cup – something Bale and his team-mates were reminded of when they sat down and watched a documentary about that tournament in Sweden this week. “We know everything they achieved and what they did was amazing,” Bale says. “I still speak with Cliff Jones. He always tells me he is the original Welsh wizard.”
That history lesson reinforces the need for Wales to seize their chance in Paris, especially as they are in the more favourable side of the draw. “It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if you look how many times we have been in a tournament before,” Bale says. “We are trying to grab it with both hands and at the same time enjoy every moment of it. We are trying to ride that wave and do everything to give the fans something to cheer.”
Those supporters have won so many friends in France as well as the admiration of the players. “Incredible,” Bale says. “You know Dortmund with the Yellow Wall, we call it the Red Wall. To see the stadium red, it is like a home game. We see on the big screen fans crying and it means so much, not to just us as players but to us as a nation. I want to thank them for supporting us, they have been incredible over here, amazingly behaved. Hopefully they can continue to do that and we can continue to make them proud.”
