Wales vs Portugal: Gareth Bale more at ease with carrying nation's hopes than Cristiano Ronaldo

Welshman has scored three goals to his club colleague's two at Euro 2016 and is more popular with team-mates and fans

Gareth Bale has relished being Wales' leading light in their run to the last four at Euro 2016 (Getty)

When it was put to the Wales manager Chris Coleman on Sunday that the play-within-a-play created by his nation’s European Championship semi-final – Gareth Bale versus Cristiano Ronaldo – threatens to distract from the task in hand, he replied that he couldn’t care less. "If we let outsiders make us feel a certain way that’s our problem. It’s about how you feel in yourself. The result will be what it will be…” Coleman said, in another hugely impressive pre-match discussion which demonstrated why he motivates his players so much.

Perhaps it’s easier to feel that way when your man is the one in the ascendancy. Though there is a near perfect symmetry about the confrontation between these two Real Madrid players, who have each played a monumental part in driving their nations to a Wednesday night date in Lyon, Bale looks like the ascendant figure.

His three goals in the tournament have been accompanied by a role in getting the little nation heard. It’s become something of a ritual that Bale sits down to speak at the Welsh base here on the Brittany coast and that is likely to be the case again on Monday afternoon. His candour and willingness to lob a few grenades has belied his reputation as the quiet man – beta to Ronaldo’s alpha. Wales don’t take themselves too seriously and the grin Bale wears on the field bears out how much Coleman’s Wales are enjoying all this. “You can be blinded by the lights, shrink and crawl back into the corner or stand up for your beliefs,” Coleman said. “Fear? What’s to fear?”

It’s been a very different story for the man five years Bale's senior. Ronaldo, unlike the Welshman, is his country’s captain yet has not once appeared at a press conference through a tournament in which Portugal are yet to win a game in normal time. Mixed zone conversations have been infrequent, too. Manager Fernando Santos is trying to protect him against a spotlight which is unyielding.

L’Equipe reflected last week that Ronaldo n’est pas le meme homme (‘Ronaldo is not the same man’) and his own face – an ever-changing picture of angst and histrionics – has revealed the burden he carries.

But what makes the challenge all the harder is the respective relationships between these two protagonists and the people of their nations. While Bale is a Welsh national hero, cemented in his nation’s sporting history for all time, Ronaldo has never been a prophet in his own land and national sentiment towards him during this tournament has been as mixed as ever. The Portuguese people have always seen him performing far better for Madrid and Manchester United than the national team and that is why some struggle to love him.

“We have been explaining to the people that he is our one big star and why we must protect him,” said the A Bola newspaper’s Jorge Silva, one of several Portuguese journalists who have beaten a path to this corner of France to understand how a nation known by few in Portugal has made it to the semi-final. “He is our only hope. He is on the front page and the back every day we play.” Friday’s A Bola bore this out. “O fabuloso Cristiano Ronaldo,” the paper’s front page declared.

Cristiano Ronaldo has struggled to galvanise his side to the extent of his Real Madrid colleague (Getty)

The Portuguese people are not universally sympathetic to the fact that the lack of strikers available to Santos has become a national crisis, forging Ronaldo into that role when it is not ideal for him. But it doesn’t help that the Portuguese viewing public see Ronaldo’s teammates incurring the superstar’s wrath if they fail to come up to standard.

Bale’s far greater popularity is born of the fact that berating players who are his inferiors does not enter the equation for Bale. His fame and stardust have not ruined him, Coleman observed on Sunday.

“He [Bale] could have that mentality. He could be a little bit more demanding because of his game. But that’s why he has got so much respect of the players because he’s not like that,” the manager said. “They automatically want to gravitate that way to where he is,” he added, gesturing to the ceiling. “And that’s how it should be, you know. It’s not bringing him down to where we are and myself included, because he is a special talent. It’s up to all of us to try and get up there where he is as much as we can. And because he doesn’t demand that, it’s helpful. It’s helpful for the group. It’s helpful for the team spirit. That’s for sure.”

Coleman discussed how the “friendship” between Bale and Ronaldo would wait have to wait until Wednesday night is over, though the distinct sense that no such warmth exists increases the fascination.

When Rafael Benitez arrived as manager at the Bernabeu, he found Bale knocking on his door to say that he was finding his role on the flank an isolating one – not least because Ronaldo expected the clique of players who looked up to him, such as James Rodriguez and Marcelo Vieira, to pass to him. “Centro, centro,” Ronaldo would instruct them, according to Benitez. The Spaniard liked Bale and the seriousness of his approach to football and began deploying him more centrally. “Why are you putting him there?” Ronaldo then demanded of Benitez. “He's standing on my space.”

Bale will certainly fight his corner, too. Carlo Ancelotti’s recent book, ‘Quiet Leadership’ co-authored with former Chelsea director of football operations Mike Forde, revealed that Bale’s agent Jonathan Barnett had made representations to president Florentino Perez about getting his client’s position on the field changed. Ancelotti writes that he told Bale that he should have approached him directly and that the Welshman replied: “Yes, OK, no problem.” The testimony of Benitez, Ancelotti’s successor, demonstrates that he did not drop the issue of Ronaldo ruling the roost.

“They are obviously different types of people and different characters,” Coleman reflected of the two. “Whatever Bale brings to the table for us, that's him. He's not manufactured. He doesn't try to be something he's not. To be fair to Cristiano, if that's his personality, that's him being him. He's not trying to be something he's not.” But you can imagine which personality would be more desirable to have. Ronaldo’s two-goal contribution in the 3-3 draw against Hungary underlined the clear danger he will pose in Stade de Lyon. But for all the sound and fury his games bring, he has got away seven shots, one decisive pass and just one successful run with the ball in 10 Portugal matches in the 2015/16 season.

What unites these two remarkable sportsmen is an unremitting commitment to their nation. The Welsh national team self-evidently matters more to Bale than the Bernabeu, whilst observers in Portugal believe that Ronaldo will never retire from the Portuguese set-up as Lionel Messi has form Argentina. “He has an obsession with being remembered as the greatest player in football history,” said Jorge Silva. “Maradona and Pele both won tournaments with their countries and he thinks he might not be remembered as better than them if doesn’t do that too. He will only leave the team when someone taps on his shoulder and says: ‘It’s time to go.”

Bale would empathise with that.