Why Gareth Bale has been so much better than other Euro 2016 superstars

Gareth Bale, on the other hand, has been absolutely brilliant. Why has Bale been to able to perform so well when the others have been so poor?

The team is king

While Bale is undoubtedly the star of the Wales show, he is more the lead character in an ensemble cast than the focus of the entire production. FAO Ronaldo:

"I’m fully for the team. If I have to do extra running, I’ll do it. If I don’t get a kick to make space for team-mate, I’ll do that. It’s all about the team," he said before Wales' narrow to defeat England, and it is this attitude that helps make him such a fantastic player.

Although Bale's strengths are in attack, he regularly drops deeper when his team has to defend. 

Excellent in the air, Bale is a real threat in opposition penalty areas and a powerful member of defence when dealing with corners and dangerous set pieces. When the ball is cleared from the penalty area, Bale drifts to the edge of the penalty area into space - the equivalent of a spring recoiling - as he waits to take his team forward on the counter-attack.

Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo are the focal points of attack and tend to stand near the half-way line so that they can hold the ball up and bring others into play. If they are man-marked, which they always are, or the defence is unable to get the ball forward to them, they provide no real benefit to their teams in this situation.

Sweden were constantly under attack during their short-lived trip to France, and though Ibrahimovic is a fantastic footballer, his contributions were rare. Had he run back to defend every corner, he'd have used up the energy he needed to make attacking runs.

On the brief occasion Ibrahimovic managed to get on the ball, he was closed down so quickly he had barely anytime to consider what to do with it.

Counter-attacks wins prizes

Chris Coleman knows that Wales' strength is in preventing the opposition from scoring and hitting them on the counter-attack. Instead of sticking Bale high up the pitch to hold up and chase down clearances, he depends upon him to make things happen.

Starting from a position outside the box after a cleared Russian corner, Bale is able to bring the ball, and the entire team, forward to the opposition penalty box in under seven seconds. He's quite fast.

Russia are caught completely off-guard and are now terrified. Meanwhile, the Welsh back line can push up to the half-way line and the midfield can make their way forward to provide a safety net and recycle play if Russia manage to clear.

They don't, and Bale is able to dribble past two defenders and set up a one-on-one situation for the striker. There are few players in football capable of running from one box to another as quickly as this, and fewer with the composure, energy and skill to then skin two defenders afterwards. Bale is the best in the world at this at the moment.

Bale is able to control more of the game because he is athletically capable of being in more places over 90 minutes.

When Ronaldo gets the ball in the final third, he's so desperate to make something happen that he snatches at a shot or runs into trouble. Pogba is so desperate to show what he can do that he's been trying passes and trying to dribble past players when there are better options available.

Furthermore, Bale does a lot of defending. In four games at Euro 2016 he's managed an average of one tackle a game, 1.3 clearances per game and 0.5 interceptions. While that might not sound astronomical, Ronaldo, a brilliant player capable of playing on the left, right and middle, excellent in the air and who is extremely quick, hasn't managed a single tackle.

Looking for space

Bale's understanding of space and his role within this team makes him incredibly difficult to defend against.

Against Northern Ireland, Bale was e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. At times he appeared on the right of attack, when defending he dropped back into the centre-circle, in other attacks he joined in through the middle, and for Wales' goal he popped up on the left wing.

Wales bring the ball forward through the middle and Bale drifts out to the left. An absolute necessity for forward players is to have room to make runs into and have somewhere to receive passes, and Bale's movement not only provides this space, but also gives the central player someone to pass to on the wing.

Aaron Ramsey reaches the Northern Ireland wall of defence and realises he can go no further, passing to Bale out left. 

Nobody has picked him up and are busy dealing with the two players in the box, giving Bale a moment on his own without a shadow.

The cross is superbly struck and Gareth McAuley has little choice but to dive in for the tackle, putting the ball in his own net. If he hadn't, Sam Vokes would/should have tapped in anyway. Northern Ireland lost track of Bale for a few seconds and he knocked them out of the tournament.

Russia switched off for a moment in the closing stages of their 3-0 defeat too, Bale timing his run perfectly to get in behind on Ramsey's through-pass.

The free role

Wales line up in a 5-3-1 formation as though playing with 10 men - Bale is the extra man and this allows him positional freedom. It takes a clever player to know when to appear where, but Bale has it nailed down.

Against Russia he turns up on the right wing - his usual hunting ground for Real Madrid. Immediately defenders start to back off and team-mates look to run in behind for the pass.

None of the options available really appeal and so Bale has a shot at goal which the keeper parries into the feet of Vokes within the six yard box. 

Later in the same game, Bale decides he's needed in the middle and drops into the centre of midfield. How are you possibly supposed to mark a player doing this?

It turned that Russia had absolutely no idea either and instead practised a style of defending filed under P for Panic!

Nobody was fast enough to catch Bale, and getting tight to him is a bad idea too since he can easily skip past you. Instead five players surrounded him, not really doing anything.

Bale waits for all to focus on him and gets lucky.

The defender does his job for him and knocks the ball clean through for Neil Taylor. Six players have been taken completely out of the game through fear of what Bale may do, leaving an entire flank deserted.

Taking his chances

Perhaps the mentality of this Wales squad, playing without pressure due to the lack of expectation, benefits Bale too. Ronaldo and Zlatan carry the weight of a nation on their shoulders, while Bale says playing for Wales feels like having a kick about with his mates.

The pressure seems to tell on other big names but while Ronaldo wastes numerous Portugal attacks by shooting limply from 30 yards, Bale is calm, and his output effective. Ronaldo has taken 7.8 shots per game in Euro 2016, Bale has taken 4.8 and is second in that list. Only Eden Hazard and Julian Draxler have dribbled past more players than Bale this tournament too.

As for freekicks, Bale said in a recent interview that he and Ronaldo practise them every day after training and far from taking tips from his teammate, Bale much prefers his own style.

Some great footballers have under-performed at Euro 2016, some have had reasonable tournaments and others didn't even make it to the tournament (I mean Holland, not Scotland). 

All of them - Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic, Pogba,  Robert Lewandowski are so desperate to stand out that they, and their teams, haven't been as good as they wanted to. 

Rather than simply being a better player than any of these hugely talented superstars, the reason Gareth Bale has been so good is that he's... having fun.