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Surprised this hasn't been posted already, long interview with him and he talks about his admiration of Spanish football
http://www.esquire.co.uk/style/esquire-men/4489/gareth-bale-cover-story/
Gareth Bale covers Esquire's August issue
26 July 2013By Tim Lewis
A couple of years ago he was the gawky Welsh left-back being kept out of Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham team by Benoît Assou-Ekotto. Now he’s the most sought after attacking player in world football. And, just as surprisingly, a Beckham-style billboard pin-up. But then things move fast for Gareth Bale.
“How many dogs have pissed on that?” Gareth Bale asks to no one in particular. He is leaning against a telegraph pole on a quiet backstreet in Kentish Town, London, blue-steeling for the final shots of the Esquire photo session. He fills out a tailored, double-breasted Burberry Prorsum suit, Gucci polo shirt and Louis Vuitton shoes with azure trim that appear to shimmer when he walks. He looks the business: a little Mod, a bit Sixties gangster; an effect that is heightened by his severe cheekbones and the directional side-parting he has unexpectedly carried off since the start of the year.
I had been wondering just how famous Bale is and the answer soon becomes apparent. An ice cream van twinkles round the corner and theatrically stalls when the driver sees that it is him. A thick-set jogger trots by and bellows “Yiddo!” — the traditional rallying cry (and the highest term of endearment) of the Spurs faithful. A handful of pre-teen kids appear from a nearby estate and discuss what they are going to say and do to him, before one declares definitively, “I’m gonna nutmeg Bale!” They snigger and shove each other around.
The boys have an opportunity sooner than they might imagine asEsquire’s photographer Benni wants to take some pictures on an asphalt five-a-side football pitch that belongs to a local primary school. There are basic metal goalposts, no nets and graffiti on a brick wall that reads “Fuck School”. A ball is produced and Benni suggests a game of Bale versus the rest. It should be a familiar-enough dynamic for the 23-year-old winger who was often described last season, only half-jokingly, as a one-man team. But now the kids actually have a chance to show Bale their skills, they clam up, becoming all shy and reticent. “Tackle him!” shouts Benni, as Bale stands on the ball with his left foot, hopping around on his right, keeping it tantalisingly out of reach.
Eventually one of the boys grows impatient and swings a scything tackle. Bale dodges it somehow, but it is close enough for his agent to scream, “Watch his ankles!” (This impromptu kick-about is taking place in mid-April, while Spurs are fighting to secure a top-four finish in the Premier League — and a precious spot in the Champions League for this season — and every major football club in Europe is praying that they will fail, so Bale becomes available for transfer.) The agent’s voice has a pitch and intensity that you too might summon if you were responsible for a £50m commodity that was suddenly placed in needless jeopardy.
Game over, shoot wrapped, we walk back to the photographic studio. The crowd has grown and Bale spends a few minutes signing whatever’s put in front of him. Three young-ish women with hair an identical shade of platinum elbow their way to the front and demand a photograph on their mobile phones. Bale obliges, and as he disappears, one of them snickers, “Nice one, Gareth. See you in that bar again next week, all right?”
At the studio, we begin to chat, half-swallowed by a deep leather sofa. A period of time has been agreed between Esquire wranglers and Bale’s agent for the interview, something that comes as unwelcome news to Bale. He looks at me, almost pleadingly, “Really, we’re going to talk for an hour and a half?” Bale can do a lot in 90 minutes; say, score a hat trick against Inter Milan. He shakes his head and mutters without any real annoyance, “But Real Madrid-Dortmund kicks off in half an hour.”
There is, though, a fair amount to discuss. Item one: when and how did Gareth Bale suddenly become so good? Like, third-best-footballer-on-the-planet-after-Leo-Messi-and-Cristiano-Ronaldo good. Bale has not come from nowhere exactly, but it was not so long ago that he was playing left back and being kept out of the Tottenham Hotspur starting eleven by Benoît Assou-Ekotto. So that’s one thing. And item two: when and how did Gareth Bale suddenly become the guy that would feature on a cover of Esquire? He had always seemed gangly and angular, maybe even a bit too Welsh (ie not English), but now he had the style and look and billboard buffness of a new generation’s David Beckham. Seriously, how does that happen?
Bale, who admits that Beckham is the closest he has to a fashion inspiration (“He always looks good in whatever he wears”), has now changed into his own clothes: a Superdry check shirt, white vest, jeans and pristine Gucci white trainers. He wears a pink baseball cap, back to front, and a matching fluorescent G-Shock encrusted with Swarovski crystals. He looks good, though you suspect that Beckham might swap the £150 watch for a £150,000 Jacob & Co studded with real diamonds. But then Bale has never been the most ostentatious of characters: in 2010, the then-Spurs manager Harry Redknapp instructed him to take a few days off and find a beach somewhere nice; Bale decided instead to spend the time at home with his mum and dad in Cardiff.
You have an advantage reading this profile that I did not have while writing it: you probably know whose colours Bale will be wearing for the 2013/14 season. When this magazine went to press, Spurs had just finished fifth in the Premier League. As the season progressed, and Bale single-footedly dismantled every defence he played against, there was tacit acceptance that he would leave Spurs if they did not qualify for the Champions League. Even if they did squeeze in, there was a fair possibility that the club would not be able to resist an eye-watering offer for a player they had bought for an eventual fee of £7m from Southampton in 2007.
It’s a complicated situation that could make our conversation today a touch tricky, a bit hypothetical. So I ask him about the match that was played the night before we meet, Bayern Munich’s merciless four-nil demolition of Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. Newspapers were already calling it the end of an era, a sign that the Spanish dominance of European football was over — is that how he sees it?
“I probably wouldn’t agree with that, no,” he says, his voice inflected with a sing-song Welsh lilt. “They are all good enough players to sort out one bad performance. Every team is allowed a bad spell and I’m sure they will come out of it.”
Bale has long maintained that he would like to play abroad one day — does he feel that his style of football is particularly suited to La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga? He glances warily at his agent, who nods his assent for Bale to continue. “I probably prefer Spanish football to the others,” he says. “It’s very technical the way they play, they keep the ball well and whenever Spurs have played against Spanish teams in the past, they’ve always made it difficult for us. So I’d say that Spanish football is probably the best I’ve seen.
“Obviously I’d like to try other leagues in the future,” he goes on. “Every player would like to get as high as they can and try different things. It’s something that the future holds and it’s something that I’m very interested to try in the least.”
The tug of Champions League football is irresistible for Bale, and it is not hard to see why. It was in that competition on 20 October 2010, aged 21, that he introduced himself as Europe’s most breath-quickening young player. Spurs were playing the reigning champions Inter Milan at the San Siro. They went one-nil down, then two from the penalty spot, when their hapless keeper Heurelho Gomes was sent off after just eight minutes. It was four-nil before half-time, and Bale genuinely feared it could be eight by the final whistle. But early in the second half, he ran half the length of the field and smashed in a consolation goal. As the clock ran down, he scored another, almost identical, mesmerising the Inter defenders with his magnetic control and deft, barely perceptible shoulder dips. Into stoppage time, a technically superb third. At full-time, Inter Milan 4, Gareth Bale 3. “Amazing, just amazing,” purred Luís Figo.
Bale describes his early experiences in Europe’s elite competition with surprising specificity, almost with the wonderment of an armchair fan. “The music is a massive thing,” he says, meaning Handel’s anthem, “Zadoc the Priest”, that announces the arrival of the teams. “When we first got into the Champions League, it’s one of the things that most of the lads were looking forward to, hearing it in the stadium. It’s little things like that which make it special.”
Beyond that, Bale speaks of a freedom he enjoyed in the Champions League that has become scarce at home since his dissection of Inter Milan. “When you play in the Premier League, say you’re playing against a lower-end team, they set up to defend all the time, they set up to block you off,” he says. “But when you play in the Champions League, all the other teams are used to winning every week, so it’s more of an open game, it’s more attacking, end to end. You haven’t always got two or three people marking you. No one’s used to defending, everyone’s used to attacking and trying to win games, so it’s just all against all.”
No one could begrudge Bale his personal ambition or for a wanderlust that is so rare among young British footballers. But if he had swapped the all white of Spurs for, for example, Los Blancos of Real Madrid, then it is a disappointment that will be felt far beyond White Hart Lane. Just as it would confirm Tottenham as a “selling club” — an organisation that nurtures young talent for more prestigious teams — so it would also offer further proof that the Premier League is becoming a “selling league”. In recent years, Ronaldo, Cesc Fàbregas and Luka Modri´ć have all left our shores in search of purer, more sophisticated football on the continent. Bale leaving would be painful for Spurs fans, but it would also tell us all some uncomfortable truths about the decline of football in this country.
More than that, it would just be plain sad. Watching Bale has become one of the rare, non-sectarian pleasures of the Premier League. Whichever team you support, it is impossible not to sit forward a little in your seat when he gathers the ball and squints his gaze upfield. He is an uncomplicated, non-subjective delight, like sunny bank holidays, fish-finger sandwiches or the early music of Michael Jackson. The only serious complaint you ever hear about Bale is with his slightly cheesy “heart” goal celebration, which 59 per cent of Sun readers said in a poll that they “hated”. So if you are reading this and Gareth Bale is still an employee of Tottenham Hotspur, then we should treasure these moments. If he has flown the nest, then no question he will be missed.
http://www.esquire.co.uk/style/esquire-men/4489/gareth-bale-cover-story/
Gareth Bale covers Esquire's August issue
26 July 2013By Tim Lewis
A couple of years ago he was the gawky Welsh left-back being kept out of Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham team by Benoît Assou-Ekotto. Now he’s the most sought after attacking player in world football. And, just as surprisingly, a Beckham-style billboard pin-up. But then things move fast for Gareth Bale.
“How many dogs have pissed on that?” Gareth Bale asks to no one in particular. He is leaning against a telegraph pole on a quiet backstreet in Kentish Town, London, blue-steeling for the final shots of the Esquire photo session. He fills out a tailored, double-breasted Burberry Prorsum suit, Gucci polo shirt and Louis Vuitton shoes with azure trim that appear to shimmer when he walks. He looks the business: a little Mod, a bit Sixties gangster; an effect that is heightened by his severe cheekbones and the directional side-parting he has unexpectedly carried off since the start of the year.
I had been wondering just how famous Bale is and the answer soon becomes apparent. An ice cream van twinkles round the corner and theatrically stalls when the driver sees that it is him. A thick-set jogger trots by and bellows “Yiddo!” — the traditional rallying cry (and the highest term of endearment) of the Spurs faithful. A handful of pre-teen kids appear from a nearby estate and discuss what they are going to say and do to him, before one declares definitively, “I’m gonna nutmeg Bale!” They snigger and shove each other around.
The boys have an opportunity sooner than they might imagine asEsquire’s photographer Benni wants to take some pictures on an asphalt five-a-side football pitch that belongs to a local primary school. There are basic metal goalposts, no nets and graffiti on a brick wall that reads “Fuck School”. A ball is produced and Benni suggests a game of Bale versus the rest. It should be a familiar-enough dynamic for the 23-year-old winger who was often described last season, only half-jokingly, as a one-man team. But now the kids actually have a chance to show Bale their skills, they clam up, becoming all shy and reticent. “Tackle him!” shouts Benni, as Bale stands on the ball with his left foot, hopping around on his right, keeping it tantalisingly out of reach.
Eventually one of the boys grows impatient and swings a scything tackle. Bale dodges it somehow, but it is close enough for his agent to scream, “Watch his ankles!” (This impromptu kick-about is taking place in mid-April, while Spurs are fighting to secure a top-four finish in the Premier League — and a precious spot in the Champions League for this season — and every major football club in Europe is praying that they will fail, so Bale becomes available for transfer.) The agent’s voice has a pitch and intensity that you too might summon if you were responsible for a £50m commodity that was suddenly placed in needless jeopardy.
Game over, shoot wrapped, we walk back to the photographic studio. The crowd has grown and Bale spends a few minutes signing whatever’s put in front of him. Three young-ish women with hair an identical shade of platinum elbow their way to the front and demand a photograph on their mobile phones. Bale obliges, and as he disappears, one of them snickers, “Nice one, Gareth. See you in that bar again next week, all right?”
***
At the studio, we begin to chat, half-swallowed by a deep leather sofa. A period of time has been agreed between Esquire wranglers and Bale’s agent for the interview, something that comes as unwelcome news to Bale. He looks at me, almost pleadingly, “Really, we’re going to talk for an hour and a half?” Bale can do a lot in 90 minutes; say, score a hat trick against Inter Milan. He shakes his head and mutters without any real annoyance, “But Real Madrid-Dortmund kicks off in half an hour.”
There is, though, a fair amount to discuss. Item one: when and how did Gareth Bale suddenly become so good? Like, third-best-footballer-on-the-planet-after-Leo-Messi-and-Cristiano-Ronaldo good. Bale has not come from nowhere exactly, but it was not so long ago that he was playing left back and being kept out of the Tottenham Hotspur starting eleven by Benoît Assou-Ekotto. So that’s one thing. And item two: when and how did Gareth Bale suddenly become the guy that would feature on a cover of Esquire? He had always seemed gangly and angular, maybe even a bit too Welsh (ie not English), but now he had the style and look and billboard buffness of a new generation’s David Beckham. Seriously, how does that happen?
Bale, who admits that Beckham is the closest he has to a fashion inspiration (“He always looks good in whatever he wears”), has now changed into his own clothes: a Superdry check shirt, white vest, jeans and pristine Gucci white trainers. He wears a pink baseball cap, back to front, and a matching fluorescent G-Shock encrusted with Swarovski crystals. He looks good, though you suspect that Beckham might swap the £150 watch for a £150,000 Jacob & Co studded with real diamonds. But then Bale has never been the most ostentatious of characters: in 2010, the then-Spurs manager Harry Redknapp instructed him to take a few days off and find a beach somewhere nice; Bale decided instead to spend the time at home with his mum and dad in Cardiff.
You have an advantage reading this profile that I did not have while writing it: you probably know whose colours Bale will be wearing for the 2013/14 season. When this magazine went to press, Spurs had just finished fifth in the Premier League. As the season progressed, and Bale single-footedly dismantled every defence he played against, there was tacit acceptance that he would leave Spurs if they did not qualify for the Champions League. Even if they did squeeze in, there was a fair possibility that the club would not be able to resist an eye-watering offer for a player they had bought for an eventual fee of £7m from Southampton in 2007.
It’s a complicated situation that could make our conversation today a touch tricky, a bit hypothetical. So I ask him about the match that was played the night before we meet, Bayern Munich’s merciless four-nil demolition of Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. Newspapers were already calling it the end of an era, a sign that the Spanish dominance of European football was over — is that how he sees it?
“I probably wouldn’t agree with that, no,” he says, his voice inflected with a sing-song Welsh lilt. “They are all good enough players to sort out one bad performance. Every team is allowed a bad spell and I’m sure they will come out of it.”
Bale has long maintained that he would like to play abroad one day — does he feel that his style of football is particularly suited to La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga? He glances warily at his agent, who nods his assent for Bale to continue. “I probably prefer Spanish football to the others,” he says. “It’s very technical the way they play, they keep the ball well and whenever Spurs have played against Spanish teams in the past, they’ve always made it difficult for us. So I’d say that Spanish football is probably the best I’ve seen.
“Obviously I’d like to try other leagues in the future,” he goes on. “Every player would like to get as high as they can and try different things. It’s something that the future holds and it’s something that I’m very interested to try in the least.”
The tug of Champions League football is irresistible for Bale, and it is not hard to see why. It was in that competition on 20 October 2010, aged 21, that he introduced himself as Europe’s most breath-quickening young player. Spurs were playing the reigning champions Inter Milan at the San Siro. They went one-nil down, then two from the penalty spot, when their hapless keeper Heurelho Gomes was sent off after just eight minutes. It was four-nil before half-time, and Bale genuinely feared it could be eight by the final whistle. But early in the second half, he ran half the length of the field and smashed in a consolation goal. As the clock ran down, he scored another, almost identical, mesmerising the Inter defenders with his magnetic control and deft, barely perceptible shoulder dips. Into stoppage time, a technically superb third. At full-time, Inter Milan 4, Gareth Bale 3. “Amazing, just amazing,” purred Luís Figo.
Bale describes his early experiences in Europe’s elite competition with surprising specificity, almost with the wonderment of an armchair fan. “The music is a massive thing,” he says, meaning Handel’s anthem, “Zadoc the Priest”, that announces the arrival of the teams. “When we first got into the Champions League, it’s one of the things that most of the lads were looking forward to, hearing it in the stadium. It’s little things like that which make it special.”
Beyond that, Bale speaks of a freedom he enjoyed in the Champions League that has become scarce at home since his dissection of Inter Milan. “When you play in the Premier League, say you’re playing against a lower-end team, they set up to defend all the time, they set up to block you off,” he says. “But when you play in the Champions League, all the other teams are used to winning every week, so it’s more of an open game, it’s more attacking, end to end. You haven’t always got two or three people marking you. No one’s used to defending, everyone’s used to attacking and trying to win games, so it’s just all against all.”
No one could begrudge Bale his personal ambition or for a wanderlust that is so rare among young British footballers. But if he had swapped the all white of Spurs for, for example, Los Blancos of Real Madrid, then it is a disappointment that will be felt far beyond White Hart Lane. Just as it would confirm Tottenham as a “selling club” — an organisation that nurtures young talent for more prestigious teams — so it would also offer further proof that the Premier League is becoming a “selling league”. In recent years, Ronaldo, Cesc Fàbregas and Luka Modri´ć have all left our shores in search of purer, more sophisticated football on the continent. Bale leaving would be painful for Spurs fans, but it would also tell us all some uncomfortable truths about the decline of football in this country.
More than that, it would just be plain sad. Watching Bale has become one of the rare, non-sectarian pleasures of the Premier League. Whichever team you support, it is impossible not to sit forward a little in your seat when he gathers the ball and squints his gaze upfield. He is an uncomplicated, non-subjective delight, like sunny bank holidays, fish-finger sandwiches or the early music of Michael Jackson. The only serious complaint you ever hear about Bale is with his slightly cheesy “heart” goal celebration, which 59 per cent of Sun readers said in a poll that they “hated”. So if you are reading this and Gareth Bale is still an employee of Tottenham Hotspur, then we should treasure these moments. If he has flown the nest, then no question he will be missed.
