He’s the 17- year- old prodigy wowing Europe... and he’s English!
How Jude Bellingham has been given a chance to shine in Germany
THERE are not many English footballers who have made an impact on the England team while still not officially an adult. Wayne Rooney and Theo Walcott are the only ones to do so in the modern era, which gives you an idea of the calibre of Jude Bellingham.
Those watching Borussia Dortmund’s Champions League victory over Sevilla on Tuesday cannot help but have noticed the growing maturity of the 17-year-old at the heart of the midfield at one of Europe’s best sides.
The difference is that while Rooney did his growing up in the full glare of Premier League publicity, famously scoring a last-minute winner against Arsenal when just 16, or in Walcott’s case transferring from Southampton to Arsenal at 17, Bellingham is not a player with whom English audiences are overly familiar. That is, apart from Birmingham City fans, who got to see him at St Andrews last season as a 16-year-old before lockdown kicked in.
His 17 minutes against the Republic of Ireland for his England debut when he was 17 years and 136 days old was a brief glimpse of him on home soil, making him the third youngest to play for England after Walcott (17 years and 75 days) and Rooney (17 years and 111 days).
Yet we may all be getting to see a lot more of him here this summer. It seems likely Gareth Southgate will be tempted to include him in his squad for the delayed Euros if his progress continues, though coronavirus rules mean he may not be able to make the squad this month. The FA are hopeful he will be allowed to travel from Germany and be exempt from quarantine restrictions so that he can either play a part in the Under-21s European Championship games or the senior squad.
JAN Aage Fjortoft, oft, the former Swindon and Middlesbrough striker, watches Borussia Dortmund every week for Norwegian TV company, NENT, and needs no convincing of his merits. ‘ What sets him apart is that week in, week out he gets t he responsibility to run the game for a team which is in the quarter- finals of the Champions League,’ said Fjortoft.
‘ And when you start comparing him with players at that age who o run the play of a team, they are very rare, so I’m sure the combination of Jadon Sancho [also at Dortmund] and Bellingham is very high on Gareth Southgate’s list. It’s got to be.
‘It’s very rare [to have a 17-yearold in central midfield] and it’s rare that the team accepts that. This is a 17- year-old coming from Birmingham into Dortmund, where they want to challenge for the title and the Champions League and they give him that responsibility.
‘ And that’s the funny part of football. Because when you come on the football pitch, it’s nothing to do with age. You just know who will receive every second ball. And he’s fully f accepted [to play that role] at Dortmund. In his position, he can go all the way. ‘Remember that B or us si a Dortmund have the biggest talent of Germany [Youssoufa Moukoko ,16], the biggest talent of the USA [Giovanni Reyna, 18], the biggest talent of Norway [Erling Haaland, 20] the two biggest talents of England [Sancho, 20, Bellingham, 17]. That’s amazing.
‘And what I see from these young players is that they have taken another step this season. Why? Because the leaders in the teams, Matts Hummels, Emre Can and Marco Reus, they haven’t always been on their top form which means players like Jude and Erling have to take on a bit of that leadership mentality. And they have taken enormous steps. The position Jude is playing, he can run the game from there. In Germany they use numbers to define players, so he’s a No 6 [deeper midfield] or a No 8 [ more attacking midfield] or a No 10 [playmaker].
‘And the good thing about Jude is he can play in any of these positions, he can play as No 8, he has an overview of the play, he can play behind the strikers. He is so versatile.’
Bellingham’s decision to reject Manchester United and choose Dortmund, following in Sancho’s
footsteps, is also bold. He was well guided in that process. His mother shares an apartment with him in Dortmund, while his father, Mark, a police officer, is taking care of Belling ham’ s brother Jobe, 15, who is still with Birmingham. Mark was a striker in non-League, scoring more than 700 goals for the likes of Leamington, Stourbridge and Halesowen Town. ‘Evening games, the full-time whistle would blow and you’d see Mark sprint off the pitch, jump in the shower, get in his car and start his police shift at 10pm,’ Jason Cadden, who was his Leamington manager, told The Non- League Paper. ‘ I don’t know how he did it.’ Bellingham senior scored 48 goals that season [ 2008- 09] to secure promotion to the Premier Division. Scouts who watched Jude as a young child say that his quality stood out despite his relatively fragile frame. A growth spurt in his mid teens then allowed his qualities to shine so much so that, a year ago, Premier League elite clubs were queuing up to sign him.
But his parents prioritised his development as a footballer over the inevitable huge money on offer and he has ended up at Europe’s most-renowned club for bringing on young players.
‘The step that he has taken tells you about Dortmund being the place where players go to in order to go from being good to great players,’ said Fjortoft, who watched as Bellingham became the youngest Englishman to start a Champions League game when he lined up against Lazio in Rome in October.
‘ I talked to Michael Zorc, the former Dortmund captain who is director of football at Dortmund, and Sebastian Kehl, a former captain, who is now sporting manager. The guy was 17 and he was in the starting line up. And I said to them: “Wow, you just throw him in at the deep end!” And they said: “That’s what this club is all about. We promised him that if he signed for us, he will have the chance to play with and against the best. This is just what we do”.
‘And there were very big names on the bench. That just shows the philosophy of Dortmund and why these young players chose to play for Dortmund.
‘That said, any promises made were qualified. Bellingham was never given a guarantee that he would be starting games, just that the opportunity would be there if he applied himself. He clearly has.’