The B-side of Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham

Nothing is left to chance for Jude Bellingham, everything has its purpose. In nine matches with Real Madrid, he has scored eight goals and provided three assists. A sharper fang, statistically, than the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo with his nine goals and one assist in his first nine. Eleven direct contributions from the Englishman, ten from the Portuguese legend.

At 20 years old, the adaptation of Belli, the name he goes by in the dressing room, has been swift. Sporting performance is the tip of the iceberg, the visible part, but it is built upon behind-the-scenes work that has seamlessly integrated the Stourbridge prodigy into Madrid and Real Madrid. We delve in a little to his other side.

There’s more to Jude Bellingham

“He’s very cool and playful, but very polite,” say those who have interacted with Jude up close.

“He’s the kind of guy you would invite to your home to meet your family and have dinner with. He’s the son you’d love to have. He has perfect manners, respect for everyone... He’s exemplary,” explained Kevin Betsy, his coach in the youth categories of the English national team, to AS.

This quality was already evident in his Madrid presentation, where he displayed great composure and maturity, and it was confirmed during the trip to America. In Houston, inside the NRG Stadium, Bellingham, after scoring his first spectacular goal in his new jersey, stopped in the mixed zone. “Phew, now comes the tough part,” he joked after speaking to the English-speaking media and, with a smile, even dared to describe his goal to the Spanish press present in Spanish: “Bueno?” An anecdote alongside reality. One of the tasks he has been emphasizing the most since arriving in Madrid is the language. He came with basic knowledge from his school days and is making progress thanks to the classes he has been taking since his arrival.

His strong bond with his teammates is also a significant contributing factor. “I’m going to sound cheesy, but my teammates have welcomed me very warmly from day one, and they’ve truly made me feel at home. I love playing with these lads,” he stated in the aforementioned interview in Houston.

Those at the club were aware that they had signed a special player, but they are delighted with the charisma with which he is turning the daunting adaptation to football away from the British Isles, having already shone as a teen in Germany. He took advantage of two days off to go to Saint Tropez with Rodrygo, Camavinga, Tchouameni, and Mendy to ‘bond as a family’. Meanwhile, he went out for dinner in the Madrid restaurant De María with Brahim and Arda Güler before the trio of new additions began their training with the new club. In fact, the boy from Malaga has been one of his great supports from the beginning. Not only off the field but also on it: especially at UCLA, when Vinicius or Rodrygo had just joined the preseason, one could observe their excellent football understanding.

The importance of the Bellingham family

One of the keys, if not the most important one, to his maturity and adaptation to the Los Blancos’ idiosyncrasies (“He was born to play for Real Madrid,” said Nacho) is his family. During his time at Dortmund, they ‘shared the load’: his father Mark (a former striker with over 700 goals in the British league system, an amateur record-holder) was in England with his younger brother Jobe (17 years old) - also a professional footballer, now at Sunderland and an international at the youth level - while his mother Denise was in Germany. And in Spain, just as they did in the Ruhr region, she is in charge of driving her son, as Jude does not drive (his arrival at the first Madrid training session in a taxi was widely commented on). The Bellingham family’s leitmotif for their offspring is clear: keep their feet on the ground and carefully consider every decision.

“You just have to look at his family. All the clubs in the country wanted to sign him when he was 12, all of them. City, United... they were ready to invest a lot of money in him at that age,” Betsy added in our chat. “But Jude and his family made the decision to stay in Birmingham as the ideal club for his development before taking the next step.

“You have to be very brave to decide like that. You have to have a lot of vision and do that at that age, when it had such a financial impact, it’s incredible. This tells you the kind of people they are and how they care about their children’s development.”

Precision nutrition

In a similar scenario, with everything meticulously planned to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming a football star, nutrition could not be left to chance. According to Spanish show El Chiringuito, Bellingham has hired a personal chef. Alberto Mastromatteo, a chef who previously worked with Karim Benzema and played a key role in the Frenchman’s resurgence, which saw his best years come after the age of thirty. Mastromatteo has worked in kitchens such as David Muñoz’s DiverXo and Pedro Subijana’s Akelarre, both restaurants awarded three Michelin stars, and he now designs the nutritional plan that Bellingham strictly follows.

Greek yogurt with oat flakes and chia seeds or tomato toast as snacks, with limited fat intake and a focus on turkey, chicken, and vegetables over beef or fish. Bellingham leaves nothing to chance, and the Real Madrid faithful are delighted with his dedication to his craft.