I think Bale can be better than Ronaldo and Messi! He can eclipse the world’s top two and win this year’s Ballon d’Or

FEW have seen Gareth Bale’s development as close up as Harry Redknapp, who was his manager from 2008-2012 at Tottenham. But also, few have seen Bale as vulnerable. It is hard to reconcile the current player of global stature, the inspirational leader of Wales, the man holding his own in the world’s most political dressing room at Real Madrid, with his more difficult days at White Hart Lane.

There was that infamous run of his first 24 matches for Tottenham, when the club failed to record a league win with him in the team, a duck he only broke when Redknapp brought him on as an 84th-minute substitute when they were 5-0 up.

He looked a little lost in the big city: a frail, streaky player, seemingly easily knocked off the ball and perturbed if he took a kick.

The talent was there, undeniably. The question was whether he would ever have the force of character to be among the world’s best players.

‘I just think he changed,’ says Redknapp. ‘He grew up, he got stronger. He used to get a little knock in training and every day he’d limp off.

‘He was still only a kid. But he wasn’t a streetwise kid who had come from a really tough background round here [in east London]. He’d come from a lovely background. He just got tougher mentally.

‘He has changed and grown into that. It’s like lots of people. You see them and people say: “Well he was very quiet as a player, I didn’t think he’d make a great coach”. People change as they go on and Gareth changed. He became such an important player.

‘He is quite single-minded. But he was a quiet boy. He wasn’t one who has strong opinions in the dressing room or who would shout and scream his opinions. He just went out and played and, if you give him time off, he would go back to his family. I’d say have four days rest if we’d had a hard period and when he came back I’d say: “Where did you go?” He’d gone back to his mum. That’s the type of lad he is.

‘The thing that bothered me when he left Spurs was that he was going to Real Madrid and would he be strong enough or would he fade into the background behind Cristiano Ronaldo? The first year he was great, then he had a year when he struggled a bit and he has come back strong again. And he’s his own man.’

OF course, he has yet to win La Liga, with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid having done so in the years in which he has been in Spain. But as well as inspiring Real Madrid to a win over Barca in the final of the Copa del Rey, he is a two-time winner of the Champions League, with a fine display in the final in Milan last May, when they beat Atletico.

And it is in the Champions League, which starts this week, where Redknapp believes Bale could take the final step and be crowned best player in the world.

The battle for the world player of the year, which has now become amalgamated with the original Ballon d’Or, has been a Lionel Messi-Ronaldo show since 2008, Kaka being the last player to be judged better than either of those.

But Redknapp believes that Bale, at 27, is approaching a period of his career where he could dislodge the two greatest players of a generation. ‘I think he could do it this year,’ says Redknapp. ‘If he has a great Champions League, it’s possible, if he can have a great run of games in it.’

The technical ability was never in question, even in those more difficult early days at Tottenham. ‘He could do amazing things on the training ground,’ says Redknapp. ‘He could go by someone and hit one in the top corner from 30 yards. Once he picked the ball up and ran with it he was unstoppable, he was so fast.

‘He was a match-winner. It’s that belief and personality that has come out in him now, to take the game by the scruff of the neck all the time. I would have thought he would be the best left-back in the world.

‘We went to Benfica for a preseason game (in 2010, Bale was 21) and I’d never seen anything like it in my life. The times he ran from the edge of his penalty box to their goal line and crossed balls was just amazing. He could have been a great left-back or a great left wingback.’

Of course, it was under Redknapp against Inter Milan in the Champions League in 2010 that he first made his mark as a global player. With 10-man Tottenham 4-0 down in the San Siro, Bale’s extraordinary hat-trick traumatised full-back Maicon and had Inter nervously praying for the end. Bale then inspired a 3-1 win over the Italians at White Hart Lane.

‘Once he got pushed forward, it freed him,’ says Redknapp, one of BT’s football experts. ‘But I remember when we first started to free him off the left wing and he came in off the right, the Tottenham crowd used to sing: “Gareth Bale, he plays on the left”.

‘They didn’t like the fact that we’d moved him or let him go free and play. But that’s what he does. You free him off and off he goes.

‘He has everything. He’s good in the air, he’s 6ft 2in, a great big fella. He has power — over short distance he’s lightening quick — he can run long distances, he can dribble, he can shoot. He can pretty much do everything.

‘He’s a world figure, he’s up there. When he went to Real Madrid, I said he’s behind Messi and Ronaldo — but now he’s up there in the top six players in the world, for sure. Now all he has to do is knock those two off their perch and claim the top spot.’

And few would bet against that happening now.

BT Sport is the only place to watch all four major football competitions in one place, with exclusively live coverage of the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and the Emirates FA Cup. Watch Spurs versus Monaco in the UEFA Champions League exclusively live on BT Sport 3 from 7pm on Wednesday September 14.