…The midfielder has conquered Real Madrid in a dream debut season, and all that’s left for him now is to lead the Three Lions to glory in Germany
“Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko in the 1987 financial drama Wall Street. “Greed is right, greed works, greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of evolutionary spirit.”
The film was released 16 years before Jude Bellingham was even born, but the Real Madrid midfielder has taken the key message of the fictionalised financial mastermind on board. The week before the Champions League final, he admitted he had not been surprised by how his incredible debut season in the Spanish capital had gone.
“I came here because I wanted to win, and to expect it, it’s a bit greedy almost, but you have to be confident when you’re playing with so many great players,” Bellingham told reporters. Asked what the next step would be if he went on to lift the Champions League at Wembley, Bellingham did not hesitate: “Hopefully the European Championship,” he said. “I just talked about being greedy…”
Bellingham duly won the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund, setting up the crucial second goal for Vinicius Jr on the way to victory before asking Jose Mourinho if he could pose for a photo with his mum during the post-match celebrations. He has since enjoyed a week off to relax, but now it’s time for that next step, and for Bellingham to embrace his inner Gordon Gekko and win yet another major competition, this time with his country.
Third time lucky
Euro 2024 will be Bellingham’s third major tournament, another remarkable achievement for a player who is still 20 and is due to celebrate his birthday on the weekend England will expect to be playing their first knockout match.
At the rescheduled Euro 2020, he was mainly feeling his way through, playing 55 minutes in total across three appearances as a substitute. Eighteen months later, at the 2022 World Cup, he consolidated his status as an England regular, starting all five games in Qatar and scoring his first international goal against Iran, as he had promised to in his pre-match interview.
Bellingham now heads to Germany as the team’s star, not the captain but the leader in every other sense. The fact he can boast the Spanish title and Champions League further enhances his status, which was already verging on the regal for the feats he had achieved throughout his first season with Madrid.
Wasting no time
Bellingham turned up to the most prestigious club in the world and played like he owned it. He scored more goals in his first 15 games for Madrid than any player in the club’s history, even all-time top scorers Cristiano Ronaldo, Raul and Alfredo di Stefano.
He scored goals of all types, from simple headers against Almeria and Celta Vigo, to his outside-the-box sizzler at Barcelona and his Diego Maradona-esque goal against Napoli, in the stadium named after the great Argentine.
Madrid fans and pundits have compared him to a vast number of players, none of whom had much in common with each other. He has the build and aura of Zinedine Zidane, the defensive awareness of Claude Makelele, the confidence of Ronaldo, and the work-rate of Clarence Seedorf.
Bellingham enraptured Real Madrid from day one, and even his official unveiling, which tend to be dull and scripted affairs, left onlookers impressed. He demonstrated his interest in Los Blancos and the club’s history, and showed a desire to assimilate to the culture too, something previous exports Gareth Bale and Michael Owen never did.
He showed a deference to Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, vowing to learn from them. He was even aware of the local journalists, telling Sid Lowe of The Guardian he was “a big fan”.
‘Gift for football’
Carlo Ancelotti summed up Bellingham’s aura after Madrid had beaten Napoli 4-2 in the Champions League in November, when he said the midfielder was “a gift for football”.
“The coach, his team-mates and the fans are delighted with him, but so is the whole football world,” added the avuncular Italian. “They are delighted to see a player with this potential, giving such a positive image.”
The Italian is not wrong. When Gary Lineker, Micah Richards and Alan Shearer were discussing England’s chances at the Euros on Match of the Day Top 10, the expression of all three seasoned pundits and former players changed and their sense of awe in the 20-year-old was tangible. The mere mention of Bellingham’s name prompted Richards to bow his head and say “Oh my word”, with Shearer quickly adding: “What a season.”
Their sense of excitement was even more pronounced as they know Bellingham is the player that could prove the difference for the Three Lions in Germany and end the nation’s 58-year trophy drought.
“A lot of people feel he’s the kind of player who’s got so much about him, who can drag you through, because to win something, somebody’s got to make it happen, he might be that sort of player,” said Lineker. “He’s got everything, he’s got skills, he’s got vision, he’s got stature, he’s got presence.”
Shearer added: “He has this arrogance in a good way, you can see him standing tall, he has that about him, that’s a brilliant thing.”
Shades of Zidane
Ancelotti has called Bellingham “the ideal player for today’s football” due to his combination of physical and technical qualities. And as the only coach to have had the honour of working with Bellingham and Zidane, he is uniquely placed to compare and contrast their attributes.
“What I think is different is his ability to arrive in the area, which Zidane did not have. Zidane had individual quality that Bellingham doesn’t have,” Ancelotti said. “That’s the main difference, but this is modern football, which requires physically strong players like Bellingham who are capable of covering the whole pitch very quickly.”
Even though the Frenchman had retired by the time he had started watching football, Bellingham had a fascination with Zidane. Upon arriving at Madrid, he asked if he could take the No.5 shirt, which Zidane graced as a Blancos player, from defender Jesus Vallejo, who willingly obliged.
The number that Bellingham really wanted, however, belonged to Antonio Rudiger, although the German was not willing to give it up.
Made in Birmingham
Bellingham had worn No.22 at Birmingham City and Borussia Dortmund, and the story behind it is another demonstration of the type of all-round player he aspired to be since he was just 12 years old. His old youth coach at Birmingham, Mike Dodds, encouraged Bellingham to incorporate elements of three separate midfield roles into his game, to play as a No.4 (holding midfielder), a No.8 (box-to-box) and a No.10 (attacking midfielder). Adding the numbers together equals 22.
Dodds told The Guardian: “Like most kids he wanted to score goals, but I just felt he was doing himself a bit of a disservice. Every time we reviewed his games it would be: ‘Were you a No.22 today? The No.22 was so significant to him; it was part of his development programme from 12 or 13. We spoke about being a No.22 probably two or three times a week for the best part of four or five years.”
Dodds also revealed that Bellingham was so into football that he would wear a different kit each day to training, and once had a haircut mimicking the iconic – albeit questionable – style of Ronaldo Nazario, “where he shaved his head and had that little tuft of hair at the front.”
Dodds worked with Bellingham at the start and end of his time at Birmingham, watching him become the club’s youngest debutant at the age of 16, breaking a 40-year record previously held by the late Trevor Francis. Even years before making his bow, Bellingham, a boyhood Birmingham fan, was well aware of the legacy of Francis and, according to The Guardian, was keen to be photographed with him in case he ever overtook him. The faces of Bellingham and Francis now adorn a mural outside the club’s St Andrews stadium.
Real Madrid have been reaping the rewards of an idea sowed in Birmingham, and now England will be looking to do the same in Germany, the country where Bellingham came of age with Dortmund after leaving the Blues just after turning 17.
Southgate’s role
England already have a formidable No.4 in Declan Rice and a world-class No.8 in Phil Foden. And there is a school of thought that the way for Gareth Southgate to get the best out of Bellingham is to play them all together in a midfield three.
“I’d like to see him in midfield so he can affect the game more, I’d love to see him and Foden play like that,” said Lineker. “I don’t think he [Southgate] will do that. I love him going up there and he’s got that engine that can get up and down, he’d have a bit more influence on it.”
The England manager divides opinion, but one thing that is universally agreed is that he has managed Bellingham to perfection, bringing him into the squad when he had only recently turned 17 and giving him tournament experience a year later. Southgate’s main triumph with England, in addition to getting to a World Cup semi-final and the Euros final, has been to empower his players. But he does not want the team to view Bellingham as their saviour.
Previous England teams have made the mistake of expecting one player to fix their problems, from David Beckham to Steven Gerrard and then Wayne Rooney. It is easy to see why Southgate wants to avoid the same thing happening with Bellingham.
Ideal talisman
“I’m sure he will [lift the team], but it is not his responsibility to do that,” Southgate said last week. “We are not putting everything on Jude. We’ve got a lot of good players and it is a collective thing to go and try to win this tournament. He is, of course, a player with a fabulous mentality and will have a big impact on the whole group.”
That fabulous mentality has been visible all season with Real Madrid and was on display in Bellingham’s last appearance for England against Belgium, when he dragged an injury-ravaged side missing Kane, among others, back to draw 2-2, snatching the stoppage-time equaliser himself.
The good news is that Bellingham will be in esteemed company in England’s attack. He will work in tandem with Kane, another player who has thrived abroad at a European giant. He can bounce off Foden and Bukayo Saka, and rely on support further back from Rice.
England will not be a one-man team in Germany. But they could not ask for a better player to rally around than the boy from Birmingham who wanted to be Trevor Francis, Ronaldo and Zidane all in one, and somehow pulled it off.
Goal.com
