Jude Bellingham hailed by personal icon and Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane – 'I'm a big fan'

After joining Real Madrid last summer, Jude Bellingham he chose to take the number five jersey, despite having worn 22 throughout his career up to this point. His reasoning for doing so comes from his love for Zinedine Zidanewho also wore the 5 for Los Blancos during his time in the Spanish capital.

Bellingham has had an incredible start to life at Real Madrid, scoring 20 goals (and collecting eight assists) in just 29 appearances. Zidane has followed the progress of the English midfielder, and it is safe to say that he has been very impressed, as he stated in an interview with Adidas (via MD).

“He's an incredible player who does incredible things. You could have imagined what he was going to do, but he surpassed all the statistics with what he does.

“Don't forget he's only 20 years old. He came to Real Madrid with a lot of desire, a lot of goals and he's setting the bar very high. He's just showing everyone what he is and it's great to see him like that. I'm a big fans of his and now we want him to win trophies with Real Madrid. That's all he wanted for himself.”

Zidane also spoke about the continued speculation about the future of Kylian Mbappewho has been heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid.

“There is a lot of talk about it, there are many stories and rumors, but the reality is that we still don't know what will happen. We will see what happens.”

Mbappe really needs to join Real Madrid in the summer, the prospect of linking up with Bellingham, Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo and co would be incredibly pleasing for Real Madrid, and worrying for everyone else in La Liga and across Europe.