PROFILE
After a triumphant debut season in La Liga, can Jude Bellingham inspire England to glory at Euro 2024?
GILES TREMLETT
Will this prove to be the summer of Jude Bellingham?
Widely hailed as England’s best footballer, the Real Madrid attacking midfielder, who stunned fans of the Spanish champions this season with match-winning performances and 19 La Liga goals, has barely played in his home country since leaving Birmingham for Germany, aged 17, in 2020.
That is about to change. By the time you read this, Real Madrid will have faced Bellingham’s former club Borussia Dortmund at Wembley in the Champions League f inal. All being well, 20-year-old Bellingham will then have joined his England team-mates for their Euro 2024 warm-up matches against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iceland, at St James’ Park and Wembley respectively. A long Bellingham summer is set to allow fans of the Three Lions to judge something that Madridistas are already convinced of – that he’s the next great thing in world football.
To many, Bellingham remains an enigma. For a talented English youngster to leave his home country and perhaps not return until his best playing days are over is almost unthinkable. Yet when Bellingham moved from Borussia Dortmund to Real Madrid for €103 million last summer, it was, in his own words, “a no-brainer”. The policeman’s son from Stourbridge had grown up watching the storied Madrid club’s El Clásicos duels with Barcelona. Real Madrid, he declared on arrival, was “the greatest club in the history of the game”. The Spanish club matched Bellingham’s ambition and the selfbelief he had demonstrated as the Bundesliga player of the year. “He is the oldest 19-year-old in the world,” Dortmund coach Edin Terzic had said before waving him off to Madrid.
Real Madrid can intimidate new players; even David Beckham struggled there at f irst. Bellingham, however, seemed more excited than overwhelmed. “It’s just something you don’t expect, to be able to play for a team like this,” he said.
And Real legends were equally excited to meet their new star player. “Can you speak Spanish?” asked Zinedine Zidane, former Real player and coach and perhaps the greatest French player ever, when he ambled into a dressing room to meet the club’s new star prior to the pair filming an advert for Adidas in a clip posted on Instagram. “Un poco [a little bit],” came the reply from Real Madrid’s new boy.
Bellingham was signed to complete a posse of youngsters ushering in a new Galácticos era. Players like Vinicius Júnior, Rodrygo and Eduardo Camavinga are all 23 or under. “Hardworking lads,” he says. “Whenever it clicks, it’s kind of beautiful.” He is already
