Jude Bellingham has already led Real Madrid to the La Liga title this season and could be key to the club’s 15th European crown when they face his former club Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final at Wembley Stadium on 1 June.
Then there’s the European Championships, where he’ll lead England in their bid for their first major title in 58 years. He’s a leading Ballon d’Or contender, one of Spain’s most prolific scorers and a rare talent in his own country – all at just 20 years old.
But Bellingham’s game has already undergone some stylistic evolution.
Playmaker
Bellingham progressed rapidly through Birmingham City’s academy after joining his boyhood club aged seven, becoming the club’s youngest ever player when he made his first-team debut aged just 16 years and 38 days.
He played one full season with Birmingham, making 41 appearances and scoring four goals in the Championship, before moving to Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2020 for £25million.
When he made the move, Birmingham retired the number 22 shirt the teenager had worn after the break, a number he would revisit in Germany and one that was particularly relevant to the midfielder’s development.
As Bellingham worked with the youth coaches within Birmingham’s academy, they wanted his game to incorporate elements of a defensive midfielder (traditionally a number four in English football), a box-to-box number eight and a creative number 10. All three combined make up the number 22.
This developed a versatility that served Bellingham well during his senior breakthrough at St. Andrews.
“When he came up to the Birmingham first team he played on the wing,” former Birmingham left-back Paul Robinson, who coached Bellingham as a youngster at the club, told BBC Sport.
“He played on the right and on the left wing. Growing up he had the ability to play higher up the pitch and in different positions. Jude was always able to do that because of his intelligence.”
However, the Stourbridge-born star mostly operated as a deep central midfielder, directing play in the centre of the pitch, and his combined average of 4.01 tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes that season remains the best of his career.
“When he was 15, 16 years old, he played as a No.6 and could win the ball and decide games with the quality of his passes,” Robinson added. “I’ve never seen a player so young be so intelligent in terms of understanding the game.”
Bellingham has also worked on different aspects of his game which is now paying off four years later at Real Madrid.
“You can see the chop he’s doing now, going from his right foot to his left foot and back again,” Robinson said. “He’s still doing it. It’s a comfortable motion for him and he knows it works.”
“My biggest frustration with Jude was that he couldn’t head the ball very well, so we worked on crossing, timing, getting into the penalty area and headers. And now when you look at what he’s doing, he’s on autopilot. He knows what he has to do and he just does it.”
Powerhouse
Bellingham joined Dortmund at the age of 17 and despite having just one season of senior football experience, he impressed his new team-mates with his skill and size.
“He was very confident,” said former Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Bürki. “From the first training session you could see that he was not afraid to go out there and show what he was capable of and what he was mentally strong. It was clear from the start that he would be a very good player for the team.”
“He was very young when he joined the team and he played almost every game so he gained experience really quickly. I think his decision-making and character have improved a bit too.”
Bellingham was initially deployed as a deep-lying playmaker, similar to the role he thrived in at Birmingham, but he has gradually shifted to a box-to-box role at Signal Iduna Park.
As his offensive production has increased, his average shooting-chance creating actions per 90 minutes has risen, from 2.06 in his first season in Germany to 3.35 in 2021-22 to 4.18 in 2022-23. His ability to progress from midfield is reflected in his average progressive carries (defined as a player carrying the ball more than 10 yards forward or into the opposing team’s penalty area), which has increased from 1.48 to 2.52 to 3.24 per 90 minutes over the same period.
“At first, we used him as a number six because of his physical strength and his ability to win important duels,” Bürki recalls. “He was also very good on the ball. Now he is used more in attack than in defence.”
“I didn’t expect that, but when you look at the qualities he had, the mentality he had, you know he was something special.”
The final stage of his development at Dortmund was adding goals to his game: in 90 games played in his first two seasons at the club, he scored 10 goals. He made 42 appearances for BVB last season, scoring 14 goals.
“I wasn’t surprised because he’s always been good at finishing,” Bürki says. “He’s more accurate and doesn’t try to score by force. He kicks the ball into the corners. With his technique, his size and his mental strength, it’s no surprise that he’s also good at scoring goals.”
Poacher
Despite his improved scoring performance during his final season at Dortmund, few could have predicted how well Bellingham would perform for Real Madrid this season.
Since joining Real Madrid for £88.5m last summer, the English superstar has scored 23 goals in 41 games and is the third-highest scorer in La Liga with 19 goals, ahead of Robert Lewandowski, Antoine Griezmann and Alvaro Morata.
Bellingham’s goals per 90 minutes average this season is 0.77, a significant improvement from his best performance of 0.27 during his time at Dortmund, while his expected goals per 90 minutes average is 0.45, up from 0.27 in his final Bundesliga season.
“He hinted at it at Dortmund as they pushed him into a more forward role over time,” European football expert Andy Brassell says of Bellingham’s incredible goalscoring record in Spain, “but to score that amount of goals was probably something even he didn’t expect.”
“Positioning is definitely important. He plays as a number 10 for Madrid, and sometimes even higher. They sometimes play without a traditional striker and position him behind two ‘strikers’ in Rodrigo and Vinicius Junior. They tend to play wide, which creates space in the middle for him.”
If there is any criticism of Bellingham’s performances for Madrid this season, it’s that his scoring has dipped slightly since the turn of the year, with just six goals so far in 2024, and he hasn’t made as much of an impact as might have been hoped in the Champions League’s biggest games, but Brassell believes these experiences will help his long-term development.
“Even Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were questioned as to whether they could do it consistently in the biggest games,” he says.
“That’s the situation Bellingham finds himself in right now and I think smart people will look back on this period and realise it’s helped him grow, made him stronger and helped him work out how to handle himself as a key player and a player who is being marked.”
Whether his goalscoring streak continues or he moves back to a deeper midfield role with Kylian Mbappe expected to join the club next season, Bellingham has already established himself as an iconic figure at the Bernabeu and will be fundamental to any success Madrid are set to enjoy in the foreseeable future.
“That mentality of wanting to be the best will continue to drive him,” Robinson added. “He wants to be the best player in the world.”
