Nobody remembers Kylian Mbappé at the Bernabéu. Not even Karim Benzema’s goals are missed. Real Madrid signed one of the great promises of European football from Borussia Dortmund in the summer and suddenly found themselves with a superlative player, a young man who at 20 years old has shouldered the team, plays, assists and scores. In 12 games he has scored 11 goals and given three assists. If he doesn’t score, the team doesn’t win. He passed against Atlético and Sevilla. A rhythm like this only occurred in Madrid with Cristiano.
Three months into the League, Bellingham monopolizes the spotlight and obscures everything around it. Next to him, Vinícius, the one who was going to be a star, appears like a spoiled child causing sterile controversies. There are no more doubts. The Madrid that reaches the classic is Jude Bellingham’s Madrid.
“That he chose number five is already significant. Zidane is the player that Bellingham has looked at the most,” they say in Madrid, which paid 103 million for him to Dortmund, plus a bonus of 30 million, and has a contract for six seasons and a clause of one billion. His salary is ten million euros, below what Alaba, Kroos, Courtois, Modric or Vinícius earn.
Bellingham is the sixth British player that Real Madrid has had in its ranks throughout its history, and he could not be more different from the previous two: the Welshman Gareth Bale and the Englishman David Beckham. He is surprised by how integrated he is in the city (he loves Madrid and its gastronomy) and in the club, as well as his behavior on and off the field of play. Bellingham’s ritual before games is always the same. When the team bus arrives at the stadium, before changing in the locker room, the players go out for a walk on the grass. There he looks lonely and crestfallen. He is not dedicated to seeing the stadium. He is visualizing in his mind the plays he is going to make two hours later, a technique that he was taught from a very young age.
There is no doubt that Bellingham has landed on his feet in Real Madrid and among his teammates. They say from within the club that the key to this good vibe with everyone is that the Englishman has not made distinctions between the players. Unlike most new signings, who try to get closer to the oldest and most senior, Bellingham tends to hang out with the youngest, those his age. In Madrid they tell an anecdote about his character that happened in the preseason.
One afternoon they had free in Dallas, while the top players of the squad went on an organized visit to a large cowboy ranch, Bellingham chose to go to a water park with the other two youth players on the tour, Fran González and Nico Paz.
Unlike Bale and Beckham, who never spoke Spanish in public, Bellingham has a Spanish teacher, he slurs words whenever he can and the club believes he will speak it in three months. In fact, he already talks about it with the fans who stop his car at the end of training in Valdebebas. One of the videos that went viral among white fans last month is of a girl teaching him how to spell her name: Pili. The connection with the stands is total. In each game the Bernabéu cheers him on by singing Hey Jude to the rhythm of the famous song by The Beatles.
Born in Stourbridge (in the West Midlands, southwest of England) on June 29, 2003, he was already playing football at the age of eight, when he joined Birmingham City’s youth system. He would debut in the first team at the age of 16 under the guidance of a Catalan coach, Pep Clotet.
That was a Birmingham that was fighting not to be relegated, and Bellingham’s participation gave it a leap in quality that allowed it to save the category. On the Coach voices portal, specialized in coaches, Clotet speaks of his pupil as a kinesthetic player; “That is to say, he – he comments – he does not need to look at his feet or at others to know everything that is happening around him. At the age of 16 he had almost completely developed his vision for the game, which facilitated his rapid integration into professional football.”
Then, Clotet illustrates what he says with an example: “We were playing against Stoke and we were losing. I commented to my assistant: Should we get Jude out? We both agreed that it was. There was a quarter of an hour left. He came in. Immediately he asked for the ball, he made one of his starts, he lined up for the shot and scored the tying goal.”
Three years at Borussia Dortmund have toughened Bellingham and made him a pillar of the English team. In the Bundesliga, in each of the seasons, he grew his scoring record: four, six and fourteen. At Madrid he is only two goals away from equaling his record. Carlo Ancelotti doesn’t like being asked about the goals Bellingham can score. “He who only focuses on his goals doesn’t know much about this,” says the Italian.
