How Jude Bellingham’s Irish roots can help him dominate the post-Messi age with Real Madrid

Few Real Madrid stars enjoyed their debut clásico in the city of Barcelona. In October 2000, when Luís Figo returned to Barcelona as a Real Madrid player, Barça fans hurled coins, mobile phones and bicycle chains at him; they screamed “Die Figo!” so loud that the memory of the game is of the Portuguese winger plugging his ears with his fingers to block out the abuse. Figo failed to make a dent in the game, as he was shackled that evening by Carles Puyol. Barça ran out 2-0 winners.

In 2013, Gareth Bale, the world’s most expensive signing at the time, was hooked after an hour at the Camp Nou during his debut in the world’s most famous derby; he was an also-ran in a game Real Madrid lost 2-1. Thibaut Courtois – for many the world’s greatest goalkeeper at the moment, who is missing this season due to a knee ligament injury – made his clásico debut in 2018. Barça whipped five goals past him that autumn afternoon in a defeat that led to Julen Lopetegui’s sacking as Real Madrid coach only three months into the job.

It must be that Jude Bellingham didn’t read the memo. Last weekend, playing in his maiden clásico, he decided the match with two goals. For an hour, Barça dominated the game. They led by a goal thanks to an early piece of buccaneering play by their summer signing, İlkay Gündoğan. Bellingham was having a subdued game until he conjured a goal from nothing. He gathered a loose clearance 30 yards from goal and unleashed a rocket that flew into the top corner of Marc-André ter Stegen’s goal. It was an extraordinary strike – struck cleanly and powerfully with an exaggerated follow-through.

In injury time, Bellingham added a second goal, pouncing on a piece of good fortune with a striker’s instinct, having made a run from deep into the box. His teammate, Luka Modrić, unintentionally scooped the ball over Barça’s covering defender Iñigo Martínez, from a cross, into the path of Bellingham, as he arrived into Barça’s six-yard box with just enough time to shoo the ball into the net. His brace gifted Real Madrid an important 2-1 win, pushing them four points clear of Barça in the title race.

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Bellingham is playing in a state of grace. Each week, he exceeds expectations. He’s destroying teams – in a manner not seen by a player debuting in La Liga since the Brazilian Ronaldo plundered the playing fields of Spain as a Barça player during the 1996-97 season. Bellingham has scored 13 goals in 13 games, all from midfield. Seven of those goals have been match winners, including a stoppage-time goal against Getafe on his debut at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

In Naples, the city where Diego Maradona reigned for seven years, Bellingham scored a Maradona-esque goal in the Champions League early last month. Gathering the ball close to halfway, he slalomed through Napoli’s defence before jabbing a shot beyond Napoli’s goalkeeper. It was an act of bullying. He’s also creating goals with deft touches. In a league game away against Girona, the match was scoreless until Bellingham hit a trivela pass – the kind made famous by Modrić – onto the toe of Real Madrid’s on-running striker, Joselu, to score. It was a mesmerising piece of skill, a whipped cross with the outside of his boot which took three Girona defenders out of the game.

Dues must be paid to Real Madrid’s coach, Carlo Ancelotti, who devised a system to accommodate Bellingham. Real Madrid typically play with a 4-3-3 formation. In the absence of Karim Benzema, who left Madrid in the summer to play in the Saudi Pro League, Ancelotti plays Bellingham at the top of a midfield diamond of four, as a “false nine” behind two forwards. It’s a role made famous by the all-terrain Alfredo di Stéfano at Real Madrid in the 1950s. It was an inspired piece of tinkering by Ancelotti, who also had a hand in transforming the productivity of Vinícius Júnior when the Italian returned as Real Madrid’s manager for a second term in the summer of 2021.

Bellingham had an upward trajectory at his previous club, Borussia Dortmund. In each of his three seasons playing in Germany, his goal scoring tally grew – from four, to six, to 14 – but his statistics at Real Madrid are barbaric. Although he was still a teenager a few months ago, playing at the biggest club in the world doesn’t faze him. He has no problem carrying the team on his back. His precocity is what strikes Ancelotti about him. He’s an old head on young shoulders. “The surprising thing,” Ancelotti said, “is that he is 20 years old, but it seems that he’s 30 years old because of his personality and character.”

The speed with which Bellingham has integrated into life in Spain is telling. In Spain, the press talk about “the English handicap,” alluding to the difficulty British players have assimilating into Spanish life and culture and in learning the native language. Unlike previous British players at Real Madrid like, say, David Beckham and Bale, Bellingham never misses a chance to speak in Spanish in public. He has a private chef who cooks for him daily. His breakout meal is baked beans and eggs, as a treat. His mother drives him to training or, when she’s unavailable, he usually gets a ride with Vinícius Júnior.

Bellingham’s connection with the terraces at the Bernabéu is total. Every game, Real Madrid’s fans serenade him with the words of the Beatles song “Hey Jude” to celebrate his feats. He exudes charisma, winning people over with his million-dollar smile and his jovial personality. He’s respectful and polite like a vicar. During the club’s pre-season tour to the United States, for example, he was the most in demand player and the most patient with fans. It’s notable he’s as comfortable with the heavyweights in Real Madrid’s dressing room as he is with its younger cohort. On a free afternoon in Dallas during the club’s summer tour, for instance, he decided to visit a waterpark with two youth academy players, Fran González and Nico Paz, instead of going with the rest of the squad to hang out at a cowboy ranch.

Neither is the Bellingham camp afraid of some opportunism. In 1966, when Real Madrid won the sixth of its 14 European Cups, its starting XI featured 11 Spanish-born players. Times have changed. Last January, Real Madrid started a league game against Villarreal without a Spanish player for the first time in its 121-year history. Its multicultural make-up means that every season Real Madrid are under pressure to keep to La Liga’s strict registration rules, which only permit five non-European Union (EU) footballers in its squad and three non-EU players in any match-day squad.

Last year, three of its Brazilian stars, Vinícius Júnior, Éder Militão and Rodrygo Goes, completed their dual nationalisation process, joining the Uruguayan midfielder Fede Valverde who got his Spanish passport in 2019. Bellingham – who made his senior England debut in a 3-0 win over the Republic of Ireland at Wembley three years ago – is exploiting the same loophole. In July, Real Madrid received application papers for his Irish passport, which he is eligible for, as his father, Mark, was born in England to an Irish parent.

For this season, Bellingham is registered as a non-EU player, along with Vinícius Tobias, a promising Brazilian defender from Castilla, Real Madrid’s reserve team (whose squad players Real Madrid use at various points during the season). Bellingham’s use of “the granny rule”, which was deployed so effectively the other direction during the Jack Charlton era, will be a welcome bonus for Real Madrid in possibly freeing up a place when it comes to registering its quota of EU community players in the seasons ahead.

Real Madrid reportedly paid €103 million for Bellingham, excluding an extra €30 million in variables, beating off England’s top clubs, including Liverpool, for his signature. It looks a wise bet, rather than trying to plug the hole left by Benzema with Harry Kane, a short-term solution, which would also have complicated a move for Kylian Mbappé next summer. Bellingham is on the second tier of Real Madrid’s pay-scale, with a net salary of €10-12 million a season, less than Vinícius Júnior, Courtois, Modrić, Toni Kroos and David Alaba. Bellingham has told teammates at Real Madrid that he could have earned more at Manchester City, but he chose Madrid instead.

During the week, Bellingham picked up the Kopa Trophy, as the world’s best young player at the annual Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris. Lionel Messi bagged his eight Ballon d’Or award, surely his last. We are entering the post-Messi age. A successor must assume his mantle. If Bellingham continues to terrify defences, it will be him one day. As Marco Ruiz, one of Spain’s top football writers, wrote last weekend in Diario AS, “We are, in short, facing into the Bellingham dictatorship.”