Jude Bellingham has taken Spain by storm in the space of the last three months, settling in well to life at the Santiago Bernabeu. The English midfielder has Spanish fans looking on enviously, while Real Madrid fans delight in his ability. Former Celta Vigo manager Carlos Carvalhal has picked out the closest thing that Spain can offer to him.
“Bellingham is a fantastic player, he surprises me every hour,” Carvalhal told Marca.
“In my last analysis for ‘LaLigaTV’ I classified him as ‘the warrior’. It is not easy to find a player who is differential in scoring goals and giving assists and, at the same time, has so much aggression. I’m not going to say that he is supernatural because he is human, but he is one of those players that does not appear very easily. He mixes the English spirit with the technical ability of the Spanish player.”
Asked whether he was disappointed that Veiga had moved to Saudi Arabia, Carvalhal instead spoke of his quality.
“Gabri Veiga is the Spanish player who, in my opinion, is closest to Bellingham. He has many things about Bellingham: interpretation of the game, movement from back to front, he is very strong attacking the area… Bellingham has more technical ability, but Gabri has great potential.”
He also revealed that he had moved Veiga back from his original position in order to make him a difference-maker.
“The great transformation we made was: he started the season in the reserve team as a striker, Coudet, very correctly, promoted him to the first team and placed him as a playmaker, but we challenged him. I told him: ‘As a forward you are going to be a normal player, as an offensive midfielder there may be other ‘Gabris Veigas’, but as an offensive pivot, if you manage to put into practice what we want, you can be an outlier, a player that there aren’t any of. Now it’s in your hands.’ He did phenomenal. If he has continuity in that position for 2-3 years, which is not easy to place him there, he is a player who can go to a very high level, from Real Madrid, Barcelona, City…”
Veiga moved to to Al Ahli this summer for around €35m from Celta Vigo, disappointing many with his choice to head to the Middle East rather than Napoli, who also moved for him. At the age of 21, others have pointed out that Veiga can earn enough money to secure the future of his family and still return to the top of the European game in his mid-twenties. Currently he is being used in Spain’s under-21 side, but Luis de la Fuente is yet to consider him for La Roja.
Gabri Veiga doesn’t have Jude’s mentality. Doesn’t want to be top class.