Gareth Bale: The world’s costliest player is poised to become football's greatest

Oh boy, oh boyo, these are exciting times to touch the green, green grass of home.

A Welsh home from home will be found in southwest Paris on Saturday afternoon, 444 miles away from Gareth Bale’s home city of Cardiff, as the Parc des Princes, a famous old rugby union cathedral built to contain strapping Welshmen with an oval ball in hand, discovers that the boyos are also a bit handy with their feet. And there is none more tumultuous than the man Wales manager Chris Coleman imaginatively calls 'Baley'.

Letting Bale lose on the friendly next door neighbours, is like trying to keep a leopard calm in your living room. It is poor old Northern Ireland, Michael O’Neill’s glorious have-a-go heroes, whose hopes are next in line to quickly head south if they are baled over by the smiling, one-man wrecking ball of Los Blancos before 48,000 Brits in the French capital.

There is arguably nobody better in the world game at the moment than the boyo Bale, a man with more purpose and pace in his feet than Gareth Edwards with the rugby ball in his mitts running straight towards the All Blacks for the Barbarians back in 1973, a full 40 years before Bale’s heart-shaped celebration was trademarked by the game’s greatest running man. What a piece of advice that was. Bale can back up such a marketing masterstroke with his marauding magic. Here is a figure who is all heart, a player whose attitude is spot on.

This onlooker washed up at Hampton Court Palace last Wednesday to hear Sir Tom Jones, one of Wales’ greatest sons, address 3,000 people, somewhere in between a rousing rendition of Delilah, The Green, Green Grass of Home and discussing his time-honoured friendship with Elvis Presley, to reveal he never thought he would have lived to see the day when Wales met England in a major finals in football.

Tom, a friend of The King, could well have asked his fans how he never thought he would have lived to see the day when a Welshman was football's king. Yet this day could soon by upon us.

It is not getting overly carried away under the sweet smell of sweltering of daffodils to suggest Bale’s remarkable flowering could lead him to the exalted Ballon d'Or seats occupied by Barcelona's Lionel Messi and his Real Madrid companion Cristiano Ronaldo within the next year.

Bale is already the sport’s richest mover and shaker. His £85.3m transfer from the all whites of Spurs to the all whites of Real Madrid in 2013 ensured such a number, and potentially a noose, but money does not always add up to value. The economic sense of Bale representing Real Madrid continues to add up in France and Spain.

As we study what Bale has given Los Blancos over the closing six months of the past season, certainly since Rafael Benitez was dismissed, genuinely revelling in the forward areas during Real Madrid’s rise to an 11th Champions League trophy against Atletico last month, a second in two years, and his country over a decade and 58 caps, we suddenly realise that this is rapidly becoming Gareth’s football world. We just live in it.

Since arriving at Real Madrid, Bale has scored the winner in the finals of the Copa del Rey, the Club World Cup and the first of his two Champions League successes against Atletico two years ago, but those were singular moments.

He has been very much a pluralist in recent times, portraying a consistent figure who is not merely happy to be a totem, but a team player. He does not act better than anybody else, wants to contribute for the greater good and is always keen to deflect praise onto his team-mates and a manager than steal the limelight. He appears to give what Ronaldo likes to take away from the sense of a team dynamic. In Bale, Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane and Coleman have inherited the salt of the earth.

Yet his self-belief is as strong as his shoulders. After being disgracefully pilloried by local media and fans just over a year ago as Madrid struggled under Carlo Ancelotti, he has occupied the role of Madrid’s main man, contributing 19 Liga goals and 10 assists in only 23 matches of a 38-game league season. Injuries deprived him of heavier number. Nine were headers, a statistic greater than any similar figures in Europe.

Buoyed by the presence of Carlos Casemio in supporting the attacking options at Madrid, Joe Ledley occupies a similar role for Wales, Bale is encouraged to be rampant. To use a pace, awareness and technique that makes him unplayable when he is on it.

The frightening thing about Bale is that he has scored three goals in three games for his country in the group stage as this finals without being on it all the time. England worked out the best way to deal with Wales and Bale was to stop the ball at source before he receives it. That tends to work. Yet he still managed to deceive Joe Hart with a wicked dipping free-kick to maintain his run of scoring when he sees fit.

Russia could not cope with his movement, delivery or awareness as they were stuffed 3-0 in their final group match, a win that secured top spot in Group B and their favourable meeting with the Northern Irish at 5pm on Saturday night.

Bale is scoring and glowing these days. On the cusp of his 27th birthday, where will this path lead? Possibly to the Ballon d’Or at the outset of 2017? Possibly to immortality.

With a left foot that can sing better than your standard Welsh male voice choir, he reminds you a bit of Sir Harry Secombe's powerhouse tones in song and Jairzinho on song.

Pele's pal Jairzinho was the thrusting winger who scored in every game of the Brazilian giants' run to the 1970 World Cup and the Jules Rimet trophy in Mexico.

If Wales go all the way to the Euro 2016 final, Bale may need to score in every game. Could it be done? Could he be the Jairzinho from the Valleys?

Wales are only 25-1 to carry off this event, in their first major finals since 1958. If the Northern Irish are quickly baled out, they could face Belgium, a side they usurped in qualifying, for a semi-final place. Believe the hype. Bale is not done yet.

Who says you just can’t get the staff these days? It is little wonder Bale is apparently going to be offered a deal for life by Madrid when these finals are over. When you come cheap at just shy of £90m, your services are worth retaining.

Not so much the boy who would be king, as the boyo who will be.