HECTOR BELLERIN
Running isn’t the only thing Hector Bellerin does at speed. He has rapidly become one of the Premier League’s best right-backs – and he’s not even turned 21
Ifeel like a clown, man!” It becomes clear that Hector Bellerin, wearing a semi-startled look, eyebrows slightly raised, didn’t quite know what to expect from his debut Fourfourtwo photo shoot. The Arsenal right-back rises from his frozen, crouching position with a stumble and laughs himself silly.
Moments later, and without a custard pie, water-spraying flower or balloon animal in sight, the 20-year-old is really warming to the camera. “You want me to go bigger?!” he responds to our photographer’s request for a bit of fire. “Let’s do this!”
A defender of blistering speed, Bellerin has attacked the Premier League’s flanks with similar gusto since first breaking into Arsene Wenger’s starting XI halfway through 2014-15.
At the beginning of that campaign, Bellerin was fourth-choice in his position at the Emirates. The club had just signed Mathieu Debuchy and Calum Chambers, while Carl Jenkinson was still mulling over a loan move to West Ham. Bellerin’s first-team options appeared limited, and a loan inevitable.
Eighteen months on, Bellerin is the Gunners’ uncontested first-choice right-back, an uber-consistent FA Cup winner playing 24 of their first 26 league games of the season, each of them for 90 minutes. And that inevitable loan? It’s Debuchy who is out at Bordeaux.
Bellerin’s rise from promising back-up to guaranteed starter at a title-challenging club is a startling one, and as he’s about to tell FFT once he’s stopped clowning around, he owes it all to a book about cheese.
As he sits in front of the flashbulbs, cameras and laptops that have captured his cheeky smile in mid-sprint glory, a conviction enters Bellerin’s voice. Hush descends upon this north London studio. Fun over – this is business.
“Last season was just the start,” says the Barcelona-born defender. “I thought I might be sent out on loan, so to finish up winning the FA Cup and with 30 games or so under my belt was so unexpected, especially after we had just signed Mathieu and Calum. You always have questions in your mind when the coach signs players in your position, but I never give up. This season my goal has been to start every game, after last year’s breakthrough.”
Despite 2014-15’s fine form, culminating in the 4-0 FA Cup final win over Aston Villa, there was no credit in the Bellerin bank: Debuchy started this campaign’s opening fixture, a 2-0 home defeat to West Ham. Yet it was Bellerin who definitively took his chance a week later against Crystal Palace.
Last season, he got his chance because of injury. This time, the Spaniard’s dynamism and rapidly improving defensive nous restored Arsenal’s verve after that stodgy opening-day defeat. He wasn’t Arsene Wenger’s next taxi off the rank; he was the solution to a problem. Neither he nor Wenger have looked back since that 2-1 win. Bellerin’s hardly missed a game.
“I’m way more confident because I’m no longer the kid in the team,” he says, his right leg fidgeting by his side. “But I don’t let anything go to my head. I’m still the same kid, trying to make his dream come true. I don’t feel like I’ve made it, whatever people tell me. I’m very demanding of myself. That will always be my mentality. It’ll be years before I think any differently. There are so many things I want to achieve and I’ve yet to do half of them.”
This enthusiasm underpins every on-pitch performance. So does athleticism: as Bellerin sits opposite FFT, wearing a tight red and white strip borrowed that morning from the Arsenal kitman, you can’t help but notice the lithe physique of the Gunners’ No.24, perfectly suited to charges up and down the right flank. He is muscular, yet light enough to put the pedal to the floor with devastating effects.
Some players’ careers feel pre-destined. Bellerin isn’t among their number. He was 16 when he moved to Arsenal in 2011 from hometown club Barcelona, and had to serve his apprenticeship in the youth teams and reserves before breaking into the seniors. A loan spell at Watford over the winter of the 2013-14 season was particularly eye opening.
“Gianfranco Zola was my coach, which was a great experience,” he recalls. “He was one of my incentives to go, as well as getting a taste of first-team football. Marco Cassetti was great with me, too. He had such experience in Italy with Roma, so training with them every day was brilliant to learn how to be a professional.”
But things changed after Zola’s resignation in the December. Bellerin had started four successive matches under the Italian, but was given only a handful of games under Zola’s replacement and compatriot, Beppe Sannino.
“You learn how important a coach is,” says Bellerin, stiffening in his seat. “These are things that happen to any footballer, so I feel really lucky to have lived that and overcome it. Every moment was a lesson, and I was very happy with the experience I gained. It made me appreciate what I had at Arsenal. You go to another club and it’s not the same.”
Bellerin returned to London Colney in February 2014 even more determined to make the grade, but his biggest asset, the one which has come to define him, has never been in doubt among Arsenal’s coaching staff. Pace.
In August that year, six months after returning from Vicarage Road, he beat Theo Walcott’s club record for the annual pre-season 40m sprint by one hundredth of a second. A year later, he repeated the trick. Has the Englishman tried to reclaim his title?
“We’ll have to wait until the beginning of next season to find out!” laughs Bellerin. “It’s not really something I’m too worried about. It’s just important that your assets help the team, because that can be the difference between victory or defeat.
“I’ve been quick ever since I was at school. I ran everywhere as a kid, then conditioning coaches worked on my leg strength so I could get even quicker. In football, though, it doesn’t really matter how quick you are on the clock. There are lots of changeables that affect a game’s outcome. It’s not just about pace.”
Bellerin’s consistency this season is proof. His display against Leicester in February’s crucial win, Arsenal coming from behind to win 2-1 in the dying seconds, was typically dynamic. He was strong in defence, and it was Bellerin’s cross that caused requisite havoc for Olivier Giroud to head to Walcott for the equaliser.
“He has become stronger and stronger,” said Arsene Wenger after Bellerin won man of the match in the Gunners’ 3-1 FA Cup Third Round win over Sunderland a month earlier, in which he created goals for Aaron Ramsey and Giroud. “In the last 20 minutes, every time he went forward he created a chance. He’s among the best right-backs in the league. Look at the defensive and offensive numbers. Then there’s the fact he’s only 20 years old – there’s a lot more to come from him.”
These are no idle words from Wenger. Bellerin is a mainstay in a defence that, as FFT goes to press, had recorded the most clean sheets in the Premier League. “We’re definitely a unit, and that consistency helps,” says Bellerin with pride. “We help each other out. Plus we’ve got the best keeper in the league.” .”
Ah yes, Petr Cech. Though Bellerin is at pains to point out David Ospina’s worth last season, the Czech keeper has been inspirational for Arsenal in a four-way title race with Manchester City, Leicester and Spurs.
“He’s our record man!” exclaims Bellerin with a smile. He’s clearly relishing playing with the man who has kept more Premier League shutouts than any other custodian. “To have so many clean sheets behind you gives you confidence. It’s not just on the pitch; he shares his experience and world-class temperament with us.
“Last year we proved what this team is capable of. By the time we found our form, it was a bit late to finish top of the league, but this year is different. It’s up to us to find that form again and repeat those results. Given the injuries we’ve had, we’ve shown our quality and great character. Now we need to kick on.”
He delivers this line with a sense of purpose, without a flicker of emotion. Ever since he can remember, Hector Bellerin has wanted to be a footballer. Achieving his dream as a teenager gave him added perspective – he’s a strikingly mature 20-year-old. In contrast, winning the Premier League pales into insignificance.
“It’s tough leaving your family and friends, but I’d always dreamed of being a professional footballer,” he recalls. “If [leaving] is what I had to do, I wouldn’t stop for a second. It’s been harder for my family, but you get used to it.
“I’ll never forget how I used to jump fences with my dad to get into the football court that was in the school behind our house in Barcelona. We weren’t allowed to play in there, but I just wanted to play football, and he gave me the best chance to do that. Those games will always stay with me.”
It’s not just his family that have left a lasting impression on this burgeoning career. At La Masia, youth-team coach Victor Sanchez – now Paulo Sousa’s assistant at Fiorentina – introduced Bellerin to the importance of mental strength in a footballer’s armoury.
“Victor has influenced not just my career, but my everyday life,” Bellerin recalls. “We realised that having clear goals and the right mindset can help you achieve anything. He’d tell us to read books. Imagine telling teenagers to read a book! We were thinking: ‘What’s he on about?’ We went on to win the Nike Premier Cup, which was massive for us Under-15s.”
The most useful book was Who Moved My Cheese?, a 1988 self-help book by Spencer Johnson about adapting to change. So instrumental has it been to his development, it’s partially responsible for Bellerin’s position on a football pitch – even his move to Arsenal. Originally a right winger at La Masia, Bellerin had to play in defence as an injury crisis forced Barcelona’s hand.
“W “With the book’s help, instead of sulking, you just face a challenge and make sure you’re the best at what you do,” he says, recalling the moment that fate took over. “It was at one of those games that an Arsenal scout happened to be in the stands and they thought I had potential back there.
“When I signed, I wasn’t really sure in which position I would play play. I thought I’d be better as a winger. Fair play to the person who put me as a right-back right-back, because if I had stayed as a winger, who knows where I’d be toda today?”
Bellerin has adapted to London life with equal ease and no little wisdom. He credits
“I love going to the pub for some food. My family like sh and chips, and a roast”
much of this to the Twitchings of Enfield, a host family who have also looked after Walcott and Francis Coquelin in their early months at Arsenal. “They’re the first familiar faces you see every day,” the Spaniard recalls with genuine warmth. “In your first training sessions you don’t know anyone, but they’re there to support you when you get home.”
Immediately comfortable in his home surroundings, Bellerin thrived. His English is flawless: he translates for Alexis Sanchez and Gabriel Paulista in the Arsenal dressing room, and he even speaks with the slightest hint of a Cockney accent. “Our kitman in the U18s and U21s taught me some rhyming slang, too,” he says. “Like, instead of the stairs you go ‘up the apples’, or say ‘the dog’ for the phone. At first, I didn’t understand a word he was saying, or even believe anyone would create that kind of language because it’s so difficult to learn! It’s a brilliant thing to understand.”
Bellerin’s love of Blighty doesn’t end there. “I love going to the pub for a bit of food,” he laughs. “My dad loves fish and chips. Every single week our family go to the pub. Oh, and roast dinners, too – they’re hey’re great. They feel kind of English now! Maybe not the warm beer, though.”
Helped along by mentor Steve Bould, the man he credits with teaching him “how to be tough and defend the English way”, Bellerin completed his integration with the traditional initiation: karaoke sung standing on a chair in front of the first-team squad.
“I sang Suavemente, which is really popular in Spain,” he says with a smile. “I don’t think many people in the squad knew it, so I could just sing what I wanted and they’d never know the difference.
“Will I sing it now? No chance! I got loads of grief on Twitter recently for attempting the Champions League anthem. Calum Chambers and Alex Oxlade-chamberlain fancy themselves as singers, actually. At Christmas dinner we had karaoke, and once they picked up a microphone they wouldn’t put it down. Are they any good? They think they are, but I’m not convinced!”
It’s time to look at the end of this season, and the elephant in the room. Four days after sitting down with Bellerin came Arsenal’s 2-1 win against Leicester. Is s a first Premier League title since 2003-04 on the cards?
“It’s always the competition everyone most wants to win – a reward for your consistency, for being the best for the longest,” he says. “There are still a number of games to go, and in a league of so many surprises, and plenty of contenders, it’s silly to think too much about it.
“As a player, the thing that matters most is winning trophies. That’s what people remember you for – that legacy. We want to go as far as we can in any competition. It won’t come easy, but anything’s possible. If we didn’t think it was possible, what’s the point in playing, right?”
It’s not just trophies. Bellerin is also playing to pay off a debt to his manager.
“Arsene Wenger has been one of the biggest influences on my career,” he says with feeling. “He’s the guy that has trusted me since I was 16 years old. With his confidence in me, I play Premier League football every week.”
With that, our time is nearly up, but there’s just time for Bellerin to answer FFT’S most burning question of the lot to this quickest of Premier League speedsters. Who would win a race between a dolphin and a shark?
“Probably a dolphin,” he responds, without a moment’s hesitation. “I think everyone would say the shark, so I’ll be different.”
And with that, Hector Bellerin shakes our hand and leaves the studio with a hop, a skip and a jump, singing as he goes. Maybe he can hold a tune after all.