THE FAST SHOW
Hector Bellerin is so quick he eclipses Walcott. Now his lightning raids have Arsenal up to speed
It really is all about the speed where Hector Bellerin is concerned. His feet are fleet, his progress has been rapid, his mind quick and nimble. His hair appears to have been sculpted to reduce drag, and he talks at 100 miles per hour.
‘ah, cheers mate, thank you,’ he chirps in reply to a compliment about the remarkable fluency of his english. ‘Sometimes people don’t even realise I’m Spanish. I’ve heard that a few times. I don’t know why it is.
‘I came with school-level english but I was in a dressing room with all these londoners and the language wasn’t always the best. I’d get home and my landlady would say, “Oh Hector, you cannot speak like this, you need to learn proper english”, so she used to teach me and it’s got very good. I’ve had very good teachers, that’s what it is.’
Bellerin is blossoming before our eyes. Signed at 16 from Barcelona in 2011, he burst into arsene Wenger’s team last season and proved impossible to leave out as he won the Fa Cup and made his Spain Under 21 debut.
He represents the new arsenal, the 2015 model that has won at Manchester City and Manchester United, beaten Chelsea in the Fa Community Shield and Bayern Munich in the Champions league and is refusing to flinch at the prospect of Barcelona or another date with City on Monday.
‘From last season after Christmas until now, we’ve won most of the big games,’ said the right back. ‘you can always lose one but I think the perception of other teams has changed about arsenal.
‘that’s important because there’s a lot of quality in the Premier league and Champions league and to see people are scared to play the arsenal, that’s something we probably didn’t have for a few years.
‘We can see we’re a team people don’t want to play against, because after beating Bayern and Chelsea, we feel like we can do it against any team.
‘ that’s a great feeling to have. OK, we’ve got Barcelona in the draw, we’re up for it.’
Bellerin was at home on Monday when his phone started to buzz. He was enjoying a late breakfast after victory at aston Villa followed by a festive night out with his team-mates, while in Switzerland arsenal were being drawn against the european champions.
‘When you’re a young player at Barcelona you want to play at the Nou Camp. We’d go to games and watch the Clasicos. I never played for the first team and if I get the chance to play there, it will be a special moment.
‘that’s where it all started. I went there at eight years old and was there for eight years in one of the best academies in the world. I feel fortunate to have been coached with that philosophy. It has helped me a lot.’
Bellerin lived on the coast on the outskirts of the city. at weekends, his father Jose would hoist him over the fences so they could play football on the playing fields. Barcelona would send taxis to the suburbs to collect the academy players for training and Bellerin would travel each day in a cab with Marc Muniesa, now at Stoke.
Barca runs through the Premier league these days: the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Deulofeu, Bojan Krkic, adama traore and Muniesa all hail from the Catalan school of football. Bellerin, though, was not always devoted to the Catalans.
‘My grandparents were real Madrid fans, and when I was very young that was my team,’ he said. ‘My dad is from Seville and he would always buy me the green-andwhite real Betis kit. He didn’t let me support another team. He would force me to say I was a Betis supporter. that is probably the team I have most love for, apart from arsenal. When I started playing at Barcelona they all became Barca fans and now they’re all arsenal fans.’
BellerIN was a winger when he was lured to london. ‘I’ve always been quick,’ said the 20-year-old. ‘at Barcelona they liked quick wingers, but two years ago I started going into the gym with one of my conditioning coaches to do power work for the legs.
‘It’s like a sprinter’s work. We do a lot of speed sessions. In football, that extra millisecond can make a big difference. It can be you getting to the ball or not.’
Bellerin’s speed has become famous at the club. He reportedly holds the club’s 40metres sprint test record, being even quicker than theo Walcott. yet his accelerated development has really taken the breath away.
this time last year, he had played four Premier league games. there had been a loan at Watford, where he failed to win in any of his six starts, and assorted cup appearances, including a testing full debut at Borussia Dortmund.
‘Maybe a lot of people thought I wasn’t ready,’ said Bellerin, on the 2-0 defeat by Dortmund. ‘even I felt it was probably a bit early as well. But the boss knows the right timing for young players. He’s always done it and most of the time he’s been successful. He thought I was ready.
‘It was a crazy season. I started it thinking I was going on loan for example and ended it winning the Fa Cup. It changed my life.’
His performance against Bayern’s Douglas Costa at the emirates in October epitomised his progress, sticking to the task, even after Costa had dashed past him a couple of times in the opening minutes.
‘you can never think, “Oh no, he’s gone past me twice, I’m having a mare, what am I going to do?” you’ll never see a defender who has never been beaten or a winger who always goes past,’ he said. ‘What’s important is that you react and you’re prepared to put it right.’
He worked out how to stifle Costa and
still had the energy to launch a counterattack in stoppage time to set up Mesut Ozil for Arsenal’s second in the 2-0 win.
‘That was a great feeling,’ said Bellerin. ‘They’re the moments you enjoy and the moments that people who don’t play football miss the most.
‘It’s when you know you’ve done the job. If we don’t win that game, we’re with zero points after three games in the Champions League and that’s not Arsenal. That was us seeing the light and thinking we can actually make it into the last 16.’
The emergence of Bellerin and Francis Coquelin, and Nacho Monreal’s improved form, have been key elements in Arsenal’s gear change. Suddenly Alexis Sanchez and Ozil have a solid stage on which to perform.
Bellerin said: ‘ Starting at Man City in January, beating a big team when we had struggled before, that was when the team really came together and when I thought, ‘Yes, I can do it”. I never felt the position was mine, but I felt comfortable on the pitch and confident.
‘That game was one of the turning points for Arsenal. We have a very complete team, and it is like a family. I don’t think the team has been as together as they are.
‘That shows. It’s nice to know the player next to you is your friend and not just a team-mate. And you’re going to run that extra step for him.’
Within this family — which will donate a day’s wages to the Arsenal Foundation on Monday — the Spanish contingent has a close bond, with Monreal nicknamed in honour of his likeness to Peter Crouch.
‘Everyone calls him Crouchie,’ said Bellerin. ‘I think Theo started it. He actually says: “Yeah, I do look like him”. He doesn’t care, he’s got a good sense of humour.
‘We say Theo looks like Lewis Hamilton and Santi Cazorla looks like Adam Sandler. They don’t say much about me, but the other day in a Greek restaurant there was this waiter who looked just like me and everyone was taking pictures of us.’
The Bellerin and Monreal double act proved an internet hit when they recently dubbed an amusing commentary over some old Arsenal video clips.
‘I thought he only used his left to get off the bus,’ said Bellerin as he watched himself curl in a left-footer against Liverpool. ‘What have you got to say about that, Crouchie?’ All at 100mph, of course. Hector Bellerin is an ambassador for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which is out now on all major platforms. For more information on the game and this year’s season pass visit www.callofduty.com