This article was first published in Champions Journal – read the full piece here.

INTERVIEW Alex Aljoe

Jude Bellingham has a story to tell about the Real Madrid number five shirt. It has nothing to do with his feats in it during his exceptional first season at the Santiago Bernabéu – though we will get to those shortly. Rather, it is from his boyhood in Birmingham when his father Mark, a policeman who scored goals for fun in amateur leagues around the Midlands, would lounge around at home in the same shirt his son now gets paid to wear. Only then, the number five on the back belonged to Zinédine Zidane.

Bellingham explains all: “Actually, my dad always wore a Madrid one around the house with ‘Zidane 5’ on the back, which is funny because it’s kind of gone full circle; he gifted it to me when I joined in the summer. I don’t know if I’ve spoken about it but he always wore it around, and I was like, ‘Who’s this guy that you’re always wearing on your shirt?’. And he was like, ‘Well, when you’re old enough, we’ll get you on to YouTube’. Yeah, now that I wear the 5, it’s ended up being quite a significant story.”  

It is a lovely story, delivered soon after taking his seat for this interview, and typical of the chat that follows. Bellingham is relaxed and full of smiles – as befits a young man riding the crest of a wave. Yet he speaks with impressive maturity too, underlining a quality already long apparent to anybody who has watched him play football, whether it be during his solitary first season as a professional with Birmingham City or the three years spent at Borussia Dortmund prior to landing in Madrid.  

Here is a 20-year-old with an unusually level head, a serene individual who has been undaunted by joining one of the biggest clubs in world football, and who has thrived wearing that white shirt with the 5 on the back. It has not all been roses, as he will explain, yet his numbers underline the scale of his impact at the Santiago Bernabéu: he scored in each of his first four games for the club both in La Liga and in the Champions League. He had reached the 10-goal mark by early October. Come mid-February, he was on 20.

Now I’m here, I’m grateful every day that I get to come in and represent this club.

His 94th-minute winner on his first Champions League appearance for Madrid against Union Berlin said that the boy with the arms outstretched in celebration was ready to embrace the biggest moments. And they don’t get much bigger than a stoppage-time winner in your first Clásico… a feat he managed with his 92nd-minute strike at Barcelona in October after he had equalised earlier in the half.

The fact he repeated the trick, with a 91st-minute winner in the return Clásico, summed up why Real Madrid fans have fallen in love with him. Indeed, as he reveals in this interview, he gets hugs and kisses from happy Madridistas whenever he goes out in the Spanish capital. Happily, we discover, the feeling is most definitely mutual…

What did Real Madrid mean to you as a young kid growing up?

It was always the benchmark in football. It’s the kind of level that I always wanted to get to – and that I could get to – but I probably didn’t think it would happen so quickly. Now I’m here, I’m grateful every day that I get to come in and represent this club. Now it feels like a massive part of my life. It feels like everything in my life, really. But when I was growing up it was always the benchmark and the aim.

Was there anything that surprised you on joining the club?

There are always things that are different and that you have to adapt to. But because I had played abroad before I came here, it made it quite easy. I kind of knew what to expect: there’s going to be a big culture shock, the language is probably going to be difficult at first. And, if you know, you’re a little bit more open to even being vulnerable in terms of those things. Some things have been quite difficult; managing the spotlight as a Real Madrid player has been quite tough at times with my personal life. But in general, I love being a Real Madrid player.