Spurs vs. Inter Milan - Champions League Game 4

Every so often an athlete comes around that you can't help but marvel at. Let my preface my point by stating there will be very little analysis of the game in this piece. This will be closer to a Gareth Bale love fest. The type of "he can do no wrong" love fest I normally reserve for Derrick Rose. Bear with me.
Like I was saying, every so often an athlete comes around that you can't help but marvel at. Gareth Bale is one of those athletes.
Bale is the type of athlete that demands your attention. Some people watch sports casually. They turn on the TV and do something else. The game is merely background noise. That is, unless one of the aforementioned "special" athletes is playing. Look away and you might miss something.
Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, and Ken Griffey Jr. all had this effect. Every possession, rush, or at bat seemed important, because, in reality, they were. History was being made, and we were well aware of it.
The 21 year old Bale belongs amongst the ranks of these great individual talents. Every time he touched the ball, it was like time stopped. When the ball was passed to Bale, the crowd cheered, followed by a split second of silence, and then an "ooh" or "ahh" reaction after he made a play. This confirmed what I already believed: fans dropped whatever thought, conversation, or text message they were enamored in and watched Bale's every move. They didn't want to miss something special. While watching the World Cup, Lionel Messi is the only player I can remember that had a similar "time-stopping" effect as Bale did tonight.
The reactions on Twitter to Tottenham's 3-1 win were often comical. The attention was focused almost solely on Inter's Maicon, who was widely regarded as the best right back in the world until Bale torched him in two straight games. Maicon was a trending topic, not Bale. Most tweets were jokes directed at Maicon, and I'm proud to say, I got a few in myself.
The amount of attention focused on Maicon tells me that Bale's dominance this year has been accepted as a common occurrence. It's not even interesting anymore to discuss how great Bale has been. It's more fun to rip on one of his many victims.

Tonight, Maicon played Craig Ehlo to Bale's Michael Jordan. In the deciding Game 5 of the first round of the 1989 playoffs, Jordan hit what would be his first career playoff game winner in a Hall of Fame career filled with clutch moments. Most people aren't even aware that Jordan scored 44 points in that game, or that "The Shot" clinched the series for that matter.
Jordan's dominance was accepted. The lasting image from that shot was Craig Ehlo, a great defender, playing picture perfect defense and then crumbling to the ground because he did everything he could, but still got beat by a superior player.
We talk about Ehlo because he didn't get beat like that. Just like Maicon doesn't get beat like he did today. They're the unfortunate fall-guys. The talking points to reaffirm the greatness of others when ironically, Ehlo and Maicon were/are great in their own right.
Bulls color commentator Stacey King likes to say of Rose, "He's too big, too fast, too strong, too good." Sometimes simplicity works best. Bale was all of those things today.
In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy Bale's development as a world class player. I'm not sure how long he'll be in a Spurs uniform. I imagine this is how Royals fans felt watching Zack Greinke's 2009 Cy Young season.