Can Gareth Bale become the best player in the world? He has the potential, but just what kind of player will he be when and/or if he ascends to that status? What kind of person will he be? Today we currently have opposites occupying the top of world soccer: Lionel Messi, the quiet man who comes to life on the field, and Cristiano Ronaldo, the show-stopping celebrity whose personality defines not just the public’s perception of him as a player, but as a person. Gareth Bale will surely fall somewhere in between the two, and Gareth Bale’s agent, Jonathan Barnett, recently gave the Guardian some insight into where he thinks the Welsh wonder lands.
“Gareth is a great footballer, he doesn’t want anything more. He has some very good endorsements but his whole life is to be the best footballer in the world. I don’t think he wants to be the best model in the world or the best underwear seller. That’s not him.”
Barnett here is saying that Gareth Bale lives for the game and that he wants to be the greatest, then he makes a very specific comparison to Cristiano Ronaldo. We know it’s Ronaldo he’s talking about because Messi definitely doesn’t have his own line of underwear. The passion that Ronaldo and Messi have for the game has been long documented and is not up for debate. Messi lives to have the ball at his feet and Ronaldo always wants to be the best. In these ways Bale aligns with both Messi and Ronaldo, but his ambivalence towards celebrity puts him firmly in Messi’s corner; Bale doesn’t want to become a brand-name celebrity like Ronaldo, according to Barnett.
“Gareth is a quiet guy,” says Barnett.
It is an interesting comparison because, if anything, Gareth Bale looks and plays like Ronaldo. Sure, Bale may lack Ronaldo’s tricks, but the the power and pure athletic ability that he and Ronaldo possess are simply on another level that Messi will never reach. Bale and Ronaldo look like the peak of the human form, while Messi looks like an average short dude. You would think that Bale, playing on the same team as Ronaldo, a team whose nickname makes you think not just stars but entire galaxies, would want to become as big of a name as Ronaldo. Clearly he does not; his personality is closer to Messi’s than it is to Ronaldo’s.
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If anything, this bodes well for Gareth Bale’s future. Operating as a celebrity as Cristiano Ronaldo does opens him up to a much harsher side of public opinion. People talk about his personal life and speculate whether or not it is affecting his play. They see him have a birthday party after a loss and rake him over the coals for it. Being quiet, being more introverted can lead to less attention, which can lead to less pressure. It is impossible to escape all pressure, especially at Real Madrid, but any player would love to have less of it; that makes it easier for them to perform at their best, and Gareth Bale will need a lot of his best if he wants to become the best in the world.
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