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Harry Redknapp's Bale force wind is blowing away world's best
By Martin Samuel
Last updated at 12:16 AM on 3rd November 2010
It is not often a Brazilian full back looks scared. Brazilian full backs are near the apex of football’s food chain, among the biggest beasts in the jungle. Their names echo through the ages: Carlos Alberto, Branco, Roberto Carlos, Cafu.
They don’t even call them full backs in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian term is lateral, because the player operates as more than a defender. He provides width in attack, as much as cover. That is the theory anyway.
Everyone thought Daniel Alves was the best right-sided lateral in the world. But then Brazil turned up a rival who was even better. Maicon blossomed at Inter Milan under Jose Mourinho and became the first pick in everybody’s world XI in his position. So where does that leave Tottenham's Gareth Bale
For last night, at White Hart Lane, Bale - in the words of his team-mate Rafael van der Vaart - killed Maicon, or at least his reputation.
In one of the most mesmerising displays of the modern era - comparable perhaps to George Best’s destruction of Benfica that resulted in the legend of El Beatle - Bale rendered Maicon ordinary, vulnerable, almost fragile. Most importantly, he made him look timid, unsure of leaving his half and incapable of playing to his strengths. Bale turned Maicon from a lateral to just another full back.
These national roles are usually reversed. Gary Neville was approaching the peak of his powers as a young full back at Manchester United when Romario destroyed him at the inaugural Club World Championship in 2000.
Great players can reduce normally impeccable defenders to nervous wrecks. Bale did it to Maicon within 14 minutes.
The Brazilian summoned help from his countryman Lucio. Bale saw him off, too. Late in the game, his sheer pace and buccaneering spirit put substitute Obiora Nwankwo on the floor, much as Wile E. Coyote would be blown over by the sheer velocity of the
Had Bale announced an impasse with his club as Wayne Rooney did, the queue would have stretched down Tottenham High Road. Bale signed a five-year contract this season but the present Tottenham regime have always sold for the right price and chairman Daniel Levy’s resolve will soon be tested to the full; not to mention Bale’s word.
After his second outstanding performance against Inter, it is unthinkable that the Italians will not soon renew their interest, and they will no doubt be joined by suitors from Serie A, Spain and perhaps the Barclays Premier League, if Manchester United are serious about replacing Ryan Giggs with the country’s best left-sided player.
For now, though, Bale is Tottenham’s, and the greatest positive of a season that has been electrified by Champions League competition.
It was not any old defence that Bale put to the sword here. It was the defence of the European champions, who held on for most of a Barcelona game with 10 men. And Bale made them frantic.
We should not be surprised. Bale scored a magnificent hat-trick in the San Siro in the reverse fixture last month. This was an equally spectacular display, minus the goals, but perhaps a more important one.
When Bale reduced the Italians to rabble last time, the game was already lost. Tottenham were four goals down at half time and were able to take the initiative later on because the home side lost their way in unfamiliar surrounds.
When is an Italian team ever four goals up at that stage in the game? A 0-0 scoreline, however, is familiar to Italians, and to Inter boss Rafael Benitez. They know how to nick a victory from this starting point.
Yet Bale wreaked havoc. It was no one-man show, of course. Tottenham’s first-half goal was the result of stunning creation by Luka Modric and a sharp finish from Van der Vaart, who appeared to have been given 45 minutes to win the game by manager Harry Redknapp, and rose to the challenge wonderfully
Aaron Lennon on the right was also in good form and while Tottenham’s defence remains vulnerable, this was just the sort of performance the locals wanted. Yet it was Bale who put Maicon in his place and drew a two-footed challenge of pure cynical desperation from Lucio, in the hope it would faze him. It did not. Within minutes he had nearly scored with an audacious overhead kick from the edge of the area.
His role in Tottenham’s final two goals put to bed fear, not least his crowning moment when he knocked the ball past Lucio and ran him, in schoolboy fashion. Redknapp’s cry of ‘Go on, son’ could be heard from the stand.
Bale’s stand-out moments were those early runs at Maicon. The beating of the mighty Brazilian was also the greatest indication Bale could grow to be one of the greatest left-sided players of his generation. The Brazilian was clearly unused to this level of disrespect and panicked.
Suddenly, Bale had all sorts of Milanese monsters on his case. It did not matter. In the 25th minute, he made a brilliant run past a parade of victims, and crossed to an unmarked Peter Crouch for the miss of the night.
The striker made amends in the second half, but the cries of appreciation were for only one player: his provider.
The biggest clubs in Europe will use ambition as their selling point this summer. It will be hard for Bale to resist temptation or Tottenham’s owners to ignore all those lovely zeroes. Yet if they have big plans they need big players, and right now there is nobody bigger, or better, in Europe than the Welshman on Tottenham’s wing.
He is a true lateral thinker and there are not an awful lot of them about — even in Brazil.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...d-blowing-away-worlds-best.html#ixzz14DEYzP7p
By Martin Samuel
Last updated at 12:16 AM on 3rd November 2010
It is not often a Brazilian full back looks scared. Brazilian full backs are near the apex of football’s food chain, among the biggest beasts in the jungle. Their names echo through the ages: Carlos Alberto, Branco, Roberto Carlos, Cafu.
They don’t even call them full backs in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian term is lateral, because the player operates as more than a defender. He provides width in attack, as much as cover. That is the theory anyway.
Everyone thought Daniel Alves was the best right-sided lateral in the world. But then Brazil turned up a rival who was even better. Maicon blossomed at Inter Milan under Jose Mourinho and became the first pick in everybody’s world XI in his position. So where does that leave Tottenham's Gareth Bale
For last night, at White Hart Lane, Bale - in the words of his team-mate Rafael van der Vaart - killed Maicon, or at least his reputation.
In one of the most mesmerising displays of the modern era - comparable perhaps to George Best’s destruction of Benfica that resulted in the legend of El Beatle - Bale rendered Maicon ordinary, vulnerable, almost fragile. Most importantly, he made him look timid, unsure of leaving his half and incapable of playing to his strengths. Bale turned Maicon from a lateral to just another full back.
These national roles are usually reversed. Gary Neville was approaching the peak of his powers as a young full back at Manchester United when Romario destroyed him at the inaugural Club World Championship in 2000.
Great players can reduce normally impeccable defenders to nervous wrecks. Bale did it to Maicon within 14 minutes.
The Brazilian summoned help from his countryman Lucio. Bale saw him off, too. Late in the game, his sheer pace and buccaneering spirit put substitute Obiora Nwankwo on the floor, much as Wile E. Coyote would be blown over by the sheer velocity of the
Had Bale announced an impasse with his club as Wayne Rooney did, the queue would have stretched down Tottenham High Road. Bale signed a five-year contract this season but the present Tottenham regime have always sold for the right price and chairman Daniel Levy’s resolve will soon be tested to the full; not to mention Bale’s word.
After his second outstanding performance against Inter, it is unthinkable that the Italians will not soon renew their interest, and they will no doubt be joined by suitors from Serie A, Spain and perhaps the Barclays Premier League, if Manchester United are serious about replacing Ryan Giggs with the country’s best left-sided player.
For now, though, Bale is Tottenham’s, and the greatest positive of a season that has been electrified by Champions League competition.
It was not any old defence that Bale put to the sword here. It was the defence of the European champions, who held on for most of a Barcelona game with 10 men. And Bale made them frantic.
We should not be surprised. Bale scored a magnificent hat-trick in the San Siro in the reverse fixture last month. This was an equally spectacular display, minus the goals, but perhaps a more important one.
When Bale reduced the Italians to rabble last time, the game was already lost. Tottenham were four goals down at half time and were able to take the initiative later on because the home side lost their way in unfamiliar surrounds.
When is an Italian team ever four goals up at that stage in the game? A 0-0 scoreline, however, is familiar to Italians, and to Inter boss Rafael Benitez. They know how to nick a victory from this starting point.
Yet Bale wreaked havoc. It was no one-man show, of course. Tottenham’s first-half goal was the result of stunning creation by Luka Modric and a sharp finish from Van der Vaart, who appeared to have been given 45 minutes to win the game by manager Harry Redknapp, and rose to the challenge wonderfully
Aaron Lennon on the right was also in good form and while Tottenham’s defence remains vulnerable, this was just the sort of performance the locals wanted. Yet it was Bale who put Maicon in his place and drew a two-footed challenge of pure cynical desperation from Lucio, in the hope it would faze him. It did not. Within minutes he had nearly scored with an audacious overhead kick from the edge of the area.
His role in Tottenham’s final two goals put to bed fear, not least his crowning moment when he knocked the ball past Lucio and ran him, in schoolboy fashion. Redknapp’s cry of ‘Go on, son’ could be heard from the stand.
Bale’s stand-out moments were those early runs at Maicon. The beating of the mighty Brazilian was also the greatest indication Bale could grow to be one of the greatest left-sided players of his generation. The Brazilian was clearly unused to this level of disrespect and panicked.
Suddenly, Bale had all sorts of Milanese monsters on his case. It did not matter. In the 25th minute, he made a brilliant run past a parade of victims, and crossed to an unmarked Peter Crouch for the miss of the night.
The striker made amends in the second half, but the cries of appreciation were for only one player: his provider.
The biggest clubs in Europe will use ambition as their selling point this summer. It will be hard for Bale to resist temptation or Tottenham’s owners to ignore all those lovely zeroes. Yet if they have big plans they need big players, and right now there is nobody bigger, or better, in Europe than the Welshman on Tottenham’s wing.
He is a true lateral thinker and there are not an awful lot of them about — even in Brazil.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...d-blowing-away-worlds-best.html#ixzz14DEYzP7p
