The joy of the stadium defined Gareth Bale more than just numbers or trophies | Gareth Bale

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For Gareth Bale, pitch and court may be the same thing. Watch some of his greatest goals and you can catch a glimpse of his school tie fluttering behind him as he runs, a wrecking sponge ball sticking to his feet, the wary teacher carrying a tray of orange squash across the penalty area.

Of course Bale always played to win. But in the 30-yard whoops and lightning-quick dashes, you can spot something else out there, too: a guy who plays for the sake of play, for the thrill of solving a new problem, and plays for the feel of it. What’s the point of running unless you’re going to do it as fast as you can? What’s the point of taking a free kick unless you intend to put it into the top corner? And what was the point of being a footballer at all if you didn’t try these things?

This is not to say that Bell lacked ambition or a head of strategy. No one ends their career with three La Liga titles, five Champions League titles and a Copa del Rey (yes, that one) without a deep idea of ​​what they want and how they are going to get it. But it’s probably fair to say that Bale was a player of moments rather than a model of symmetry, and a player of relics rather than milestones. Sometimes those moments lasted for a split second, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for half an hour, and sometimes – as in 2012/13 – for an entire nine-month Premier League season. Perhaps he could have earned more than he did. Maybe he could have played more than he did. Maybe he could have left Real Madrid a little earlier.

And we’ll probably start at Madrid, the club where Bale signed for a world record fee, winning everything he could have won, yet somehow losing something of himself too. In hindsight, Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013 was too good to be surpassed or outdone. Most Real Madrid players either got this and dedicated themselves to a life of service (Karim Benzema, Luka Modric, Angel Di Maria), or left. Bill did neither. Initially deployed on the right wing, he eventually claimed a more central role. His production was very good. Injuries began to bite. Real Madrid fans, meanwhile, were never satisfied the way they did Ronaldo, and through decades-long squabbles, completely turned against him later on.

But when it was hot, no one could touch it. His scintillating bicycle kick against Liverpool in the 2018 Champions League Final is probably his best remembered goal. Then there was the infamous solo attempt in the 2014 Copa del Rey final against Barcelona, ​​where Bale grabbed the ball halfway, ran outside the touchline for a quarter of the length of the field before knocking a shot off the keeper’s legs. . Perhaps this was the full expression of Playground Bale: the kind of goal most players could hardly even conceive of, let alone attempt, let alone execute.

Gareth Bale scored one of his three goals against Inter Milan at the San Siro in 2010. Photograph: Max Rossi/Reuters

Then of course there was the apprenticeship at Tottenham: a thrilling hat-trick against Internazionale at the San Siro in 2010, the destruction of Maicon in the second leg, and an otherworldly volley against Stoke, a 2012-13 season that stands as one of the greatest Premier League seasons of all time. In which Bell scored 21 goals, nine of them from outside the area, four of them were won by goals in the 78th minute or after. In doing so, he single-handedly dragged a team including Stephen Kolker, Kyle Naughton and Lewis Holtby to the brink of the Champions League. And I think this was once a skinny £5m left-back who failed to win any of his first 24 games for the club and was initially left out by Benoit Assou-Ekotto.

But Bill’s story is always as much a story of growth as it is of expression. If Southampton give him the start and Tottenham catapult him to stardom, he’s gone on the greatest ever journey in the Welsh red. When Bell made his debut as a 16-year-old in 2006, Wales had not qualified for a major tournament in 48 years. They have now achieved three of the last four, and if Bill is not the only principal member of this side, he has been his lungs and his heart, his ambition and his daring, his cheerfulness and his hustle. In spirit and demeanor, Wales is Bale’s team, and here again Bale departs having inherited a host of match-winning, heart-stopping memories.

Maybe it all ended a little meekly. Those years of waste and rot in Madrid, a largely unflattering loan to Tottenham under Jose Mourinho, a lukewarm spell in Los Angeles, a dismal first-time World Cup campaign that culminated in a half-time substitution against England. this is good. This happens for the better. And perhaps it was inevitable that for the player who plays to feel, and who specializes in crafting moments of perfection and wonder, half-finished and simplistic extended scores will not suit him. Bell has no business in gradual pacification across divisions, nor in pampering in China or the Gulf.

You will continue to hear the prevailing view in some quarters that Bill somehow failed to live up to his destiny, and to make the most of his talent. Which means… well, what exactly?

We may sometimes forget that soccer is not a clinical exercise or a numbers game or records but rather a swaying, buzzing, crying, shrieking flick book of pure memories: fond memories and misremembered ones. During his 17 years as a professional soccer player, Bale produced more such memories than any soccer player from these shores. And let that define it.

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