Before starting his last season at Dortmund, Jude Bellingham was reminded in an interview with the club’s media that it was 25 years since the team’s only Champions League. They told him about Lars Ricken, the local hero who scored 3-1 in the final against Juventus eight seconds after coming on and who remained in the club throughout his career, and about the ambition to transcend with moments like that. “Especially for Dortmund fans,” replied the young man, relaxing on a sofa. “That lasts longer than any car or house you can buy,” he added. “You have to stay here long enough and it will come. Only in Dortmund,” the interviewers added while the Englishman nodded.
Two years later, with whom Bellingham seeks to transcend is against Dortmund in the Champions League final (9:00 p.m., La1 and Movistar). “Who would have imagined it?” one of the people who participated behind the scenes in that meeting said these days with a smile, appealing to the things in life.
After the best season of his career, the carom has placed the Real Madrid player looking for his first night of glory against the entity that trained him between 2020 and 2023 after leaving his origins in Birmingham at the age of 17. They had been following him for three seasons, since an England U-15 match. “If you come, we will develop you and in two years you will be international,” they had promised him from the Westfalenstadion, as the player recalled on the BBC. A calculation that was too long: after four months he had already debuted with his national team. Thirty million they paid for this boy from the English Second Division after beating United, who unsuccessfully sent Alex Ferguson, Eric Cantona, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and Bryan Robson to join the family.
The first impression he made in Germany was the same one he left upon his arrival in Spain. “I remember that, when I spoke to him for the first time, he still seemed like a boy, but he was already very confident and mature for his age,” says a former Dortmund employee. A description that Edin Terzic summarized in a very graphic way: “he is the oldest 19-year-old player in the world,” stated the current Dortmund coach, who directed him as first and second coach. A little earlier, center back Mats Hummels had elaborated on the same thing: “he is the most mature 18-year-old player I have ever seen.”
The mother (Denise) was the one who took care of Jude when he landed in the Ruhr mining area, the one who took him by car to train, while his father (Mark) stayed in England with the youngest son, Jobe. “On the field he offers a complete package,” he highlighted when one of the youth team managers, Otto Addo, signed. Well, for example, in the tacklesalthough they had to insist on him not to fall into silly mistakes.
“His debut in the Champions League was below average (substitute in the first three games),” says the former Dortmund worker. “He knew it and learned from it. We must not forget that he was 17 years old and came from Second Division. “He accepted that he would need some time to adapt and it didn’t take him much,” he adds about a European campaign that he closed by scoring his team’s only goal in the quarterfinal second leg defeat against City (1-2). “I adapted very quickly to the club and the country,” he assessed in that interview in the summer of 2022 with the club. There he made good friends with Erling Haaland, who nicknamed him “the new Stevie G” (in reference to Steven Gerrard), and devoured the Michael Jordan documentary no less than 15 times. The last dance.
Beyond a second campaign with curveballs due to the team’s performance – “I had to take on more responsibility than I thought,” he admitted – the three years in Germany were sharpening young Jude and showing the qualities that have exploded at the Bernabéu. “Now I am a little more determined in the final third. “I am more and more in the penalty area,” he said in January 2023.
By then, his scoring tally had already taken a rise with Haaland at City and his replacement, Sébastian Haller, a victim of testicular cancer. From the four goals in the year of his debut in Germany he went to 14 in the third year. The passage of time had also made him realize that his body had to take a leap. “In the national team I saw, through my Premier teammates, the importance of working more physically. “I talked about it with our (Dortmund) trainers to gain muscle,” he explained a year and a half ago.
A progression on several tracks that led him to be named the best player in the Bundesliga before going to Madrid, also attracted by Vinicius’ messages of seduction. Absent due to injury from last season’s fatal outcome for Dortmund, Jude Bellingham said goodbye to the yellow wall with 24 goals and 25 assists in 132 games. In Madrid, in his first year, he adds only a little less (23) in a third of games (41). “For those of us who knew him here, his performance at Madrid is no surprise,” points out the person who worked with him at Borussia.
After the Teutonic triennium, his explosion occurred when Ancelotti opened a new horizon for him by placing him in the midfield, a vein that the coaching staff explored based on what they saw of him at Dortmund, especially in his last stage. “The closer to the goal, the better,” said Carletto a few days ago, who denied that he was Toni Kroos’s heir.
One of the most famous definitions about Bellingham was given by his former coach Mike Dodds when he said that he was a four, an eight and a ten (where his number 22 came from). Thomas Tüchel, three weeks ago, expanded the numbering: “It is a 10, a nine, an eight and a six.”
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