Finally, Bale has his chance to perform on biggest stage

Wales legend deserves to lead out nation at first appearance at tournament since 1958

- Malik Ouzia in Doha

THE best player of his generation never to play at a World Cup will shake off that unwanted mantle this evening, when Wales meet the USA in Al Rayyan.

For several generations of Welsh fans, the wait to watch their team on football's biggest stage will finally end, too.

Gareth Bale made his international debut at 16, in May 2006, in a pre-tournament friendly against a Trinidad & Tobago side about to head off to a World Cup that would put the Caribbean nation's tally of World Cup appearances on a par with Cuba, Haiti, Kuwait, Indonesia - and Wales, whose own qualifying campaign had been another disaster. Between the 2002 and 2006 editions, Wales won just three out of 20 matches, against Belarus, Northern Ireland and Azerbaijan.

A second World Cup, and first since 1958, had seldom seemed further away, but with Bale's gradual evolution, from full-back to forward, Tottenham jinx to Real Galactico, came Wales's at first steady and then, in France in 2016, accelerated rise as a genuine footballing force.

As, on the continent, Bale made waves, at home, football shed its counter-cultural tag and leapt into the mainstream - a fact the nation's sporting psyche may well be particularly grateful for today, with an immediate chance to salve the wounds of Saturday's rugby defeat by Georgia in Cardiff.