Real Madrid will go into El Clasico against Barcelona without Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, and it looks like there is a good chance that Luka Modric will be on the bench too, but they will have Jude Bellingham. It might seem quixotic, lazy, or for some downright disrespectful to add the 20-year-old’s name to that list. Clearly, Bellingham is yet to earn his place sitting alongside them in the pantheon of football Gods, but in terms of what he means to this Real Madrid? Bellingham has already made his groove in the couch.
Anyone who visits the Santiago Bernabeu will be struck by the number of ‘Bellingham 5’ shirts milling alongside them outside the ground. It took all of 36 minutes into his debut for his Angel of the North celebration to become the fashionable form of rounding off a goal in the playground. Just under four months into life in Madrid, it’s sort of hard to imagine that he could have been anywhere else this summer.
“Growing up as young, aspiring footballers you’re aware that in world football, Real Madrid probably sits alone as the most magical, biggest club. So I think it’s the pinnacle of anyone’s career, and not many people say no when they come in for you,” Michael Owen tells Football España in an exclusive interview with DAZN Bet.
“I was certainly like that. I saw myself spending my whole career at Liverpool, but when Real Madrid come knocking, you don’t say no, it’s just such a huge opportunity to play in amongst some of the world’s greats, and when I signed, it was the Galactico era.”
Already Bellingham has declared that he can see himself being in the Spanish capital for the next decade. There is no doubt an element of massaging the pressure points of a hyper-sensitive Madrid media machine, but his happiness seems genuine. Generally, it’s pretty easy to see the difference between a conscious smile and a natural one.
Almost every goal he scores has an element of fairytale to it. Of his 11 goals, seven have directly changed the result, four have been Real Madrid’s first goal of the match, and three have come after the 80th minute, all of which were winners.
Nobody doubted that Bellingham was talented, that he had the touch, technique and intelligence to become a global star. But starting this well? Simply put, nobody ever has. Rightly or wrongly, there remains a stigma around the adaptation of English players to foreign leagues, something the 20-year-old can be seen snickering at.
“Obviously Jude’s a bit younger, I was still quite young when I arrived,” Owen remarks, having gone through the settling process in Spain himself.
“I don’t know whether it’s a help or a hindrance. He doesn’t have a family, he’s not settled, he doesn’t have that upheaval off the pitch, and he’s obviously already had to move from the UK to Germany once, so I guess he is a bit more experienced than I was.”
“But I found it absolutely brilliant. I loved my year at Real Madrid, and it looks like he’s really enjoying himself, and it’s easy when everything is going well.”
Without Kylian Mbappe, Bellingham became the star signign on arrival in Madrid. Carlo Ancelotti made sure of that, redesigning his entire team around the 20-year-old. Indirectly or not, the consequences of that were moving their best player last season, Vinicius Junior, out of his preferred role, and dropping Modric.
Yet with the eyes of the world on him, the weight of that is nowhere to be seen. It seems inconceivable, but Owen explains that perhaps footballers, at the elite level in this case, maybe don’t feel that pressure exactly as you would picture.
“Pressure doesn’t differ from someone waking up and dreading a meeting, or someone growing up, or pressure to perform. It doesn’t necessarily intensify based on how high the level is. Bear in mind that the person actually performing the skill is highly capable.”
“The way I try to view it, is that pressure is if I go out onto the golf course on the first tee, and there are 20 people watching me, that’s pressure, because I’m not confident I can do it.”
“But if somebody puts me in front of a football, then I don’t feel anything, because that’s what I do, that’s my day-to-day, that’s my job. So pressure is when you’re out of your comfort zone, but you’re being asked to do it.”
Even so, Bellingham has adapted seamlessly, performing in a new position as if it had been his own for the past decade. The story goes that he used to wear 22 because it was a combination of a 4, 8 and 10, all of the positions he was capable of playing at any one time.
“We’re talking about someone in Bellingham that is supremely talented, that has a great mind, that embraces his new life, his new culture, new friends, new job, and just loves his life. He’s embracing this new stage. It’s not as if you’ve been waking up for 63 days and on the 64th day, Bellingham is going to wake up and think, ‘I can’t do this’. And Bellingham is enormously capable. So I’d say he’s feeling less pressure than the average guy going down to the factory to start his job.”
“There is obviously [pressure] from the outside, and when you retire, you realise that you were the person your country looked upon to score goals, Real Madrid, Manchester United, massive clubs. But when you’re doing it, it’s just your job, your day-to-day.”
Beyond the heavy metal din outside of the club, perhaps even more impressive is how enamoured his teammates are with Bellingham. The mind strains to recall someone so young who has earned the respect of other Real Madrid stars so quickly, affording him enough deference to become head chef in one of the most notoriously fierce kitchens in the world, at a restaurant where the pressure cooker is always on.
“There are lots of different emotions flying around a club when a youngster or a new signing comes in,” admits Owen.
“I think the most important thing is to be humble off the pitch. If you go in thinking you’re God before you’ve kicked a ball, that’s when problems arise. If you go in, you’re nice, you smile, you ask questions, and if you’re just generally a nice guy, that will serve you so much more than your ability. People are willing to help, and that goes for any walk of life.”
Bellingham may or may not make the difference in El Clasico, but it won’t be down to stage fright. Whatever Bellingham is doing off the pitch, his work off it is Michelin star too. Real Madrid will be begging him not to mess with the recipe.
Bellingham the iceman