Jude Bellingham couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate final. On Saturday night, Real Madrid’s new superstar will end a thoroughly impressive first season by trying to win the European Cup, against his former side Borussia Dortmund, in his home country of England. It feels perfectly set up for him to shine.
Bellingham is something of an anomaly, as English footballers have traditionally been reluctant to adventure abroad. There was a wave in the 1980s and early 1990s, particularly when English clubs were banned from Europe in the late 1980s. Gary Lineker had a good spell at Barcelona, Chris Waddle became a legend in Marseille and various players, most notably Paul Gascoigne, Paul Ince and David Platt, played in Serie A.
But by the turn of the century, when the Premier League had established itself as one of the best divisions in Europe, English players stayed at home. The exceptions, granted, came at Real Madrid, the club who were always able to lure top talent from the Premier League, where Steve McManaman, David Beckham, Michael Owen and Jonathan Woodgate all moved. Other than that, there was little to speak of.
Steve McManaman scoring for Real Madrid in the 2000 Champions League final (Shaun Botterill /Allsport)
Recently, English players have become more adventurous. Several youngsters have decided that the Bundesliga is a good development league. Harry Kane finished as top goalscorer there this season, and Jadon Sancho will feature for Borussia Dortmund at Wembley this weekend. Kieran Trippier won La Liga with Atletico Madrid. Ashley Young and Fikayo Tomori won Serie A with Inter Milan and AC Milan respectively. But almost every English player who has played abroad, whether successfully or otherwise, has also spent most of their career, and their peak years, playing in England.
In that respect, Bellingham will surely be different. Real Madrid once chopped and changed players almost every summer but, after the long-term success of a team based around Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane, Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, they now think in the long term.
Bellingham will probably stay at Real for years and it’s difficult to think of another England international from any era — aside from the anomaly of Canada-born and German-developed Owen Hargreaves — who has spent most of their career abroad.
Then again, for most countries, this is the norm — England might be the last country to experience this.
Over the last 30 years, there has been a shift in how elite footballers map out their careers. Back in the day, even the most renowned footballers spent at least a sizeable chunk in their homeland. Pele played nearly his entire career in Brazil, Eusebio played for 14 years in Portugal, Johan Cruyff spent 13 seasons in the Netherlands, while Diego Maradona spent six years in Argentina as a youngster and then another four as a somewhat unreliable veteran.
Bellingham has become one of England’s key players (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
At times, particularly with players whose home nation was a dictatorship, they were effectively banned from playing elsewhere. At various points in the 20th century, several top leagues — including in England, Spain and Italy — also had complete bans on foreign players.
That is a thing of the past — but there have been two further shifts.
In the 1980s and 1990s, smaller countries — in global footballing terms — came to understand that a player’s peak years would be spent in richer leagues. Bulgarian and Romanian and Portuguese fans knew that Hristo Stoichkov and Gheorghe Hagi and Luis Figo would eventually spent their best years abroad, but they at least saw these future world-class players in their domestic league for several years.
Now, they barely see them at all. Lionel Messi has never, and probably will never, play Argentine club football. A tiny proportion (three per cent) of Cristiano Ronaldo’s club appearances have been for a Portuguese side. Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s club career lasted 24 years, and featured only one full season in Sweden. Lyon got a few years out of Benzema, but he was gone before he turned 22. Brazil were probably lucky to get 18 months from Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo, and the same goes for Endrick, who will join his compatriots at Real when he turns 18 this summer.
Bellingham broke through at Borussia Dortmund (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
It is largely only Italy, Spain and England who are the exceptions. But Italy have had this experience already: Marco Verratti went straight from Serie B, to Paris Saint-Germain and has now taken semi-retirement in Qatar. For Spain, Cesc Fabregas, Juan Mata and David Silva played several seasons in La Liga, but spent their peak years in the Premier League.
English fans simply aren’t accustomed to getting to know footballers who develop abroad. When Gareth Southgate picked his preliminary squad for Euro 2024, and included Bellingham as a midfielder, one Twitter user went semi-viral for claiming that Bellingham was “the most centre-midfieldy centre-midfielder in the world”. Then came a backlash from people pointing out that he’s played as a forward all season. The same person, incidentally, had previously tweeted that Bellingham was “the best in the world”.
That user, as it happens, doesn’t appear to be an England supporter anyway — but that probably sums up how Bellingham will be perceived in Britain. Everyone knows he’s been sensational — look at the statistics, watch the highlights on social media — but how many in this country have watched him play 90 minutes week-in, week-out? Probably not many. Real are hardly an obscure club, but whereas La Liga once had a prominent place in Sky Sports’ evening entertainment, now it’s tucked away on subscription-based LaLigaTV in the UK. It’s easier than ever to follow overseas football through the internet, but probably harder than it was a decade ago on television.
The flip side, however, is that by playing for an overseas club, Bellingham has avoided being part of the club-based debates that have previously made some English fans turn against, say, David Beckham or Frank Lampard because they disliked Manchester United or Chelsea. By having allegiance only to Birmingham City, who will play in League One next season, Bellingham feels like he belongs to England as a whole, rather than to a small section of it. Even Aston Villa fans can’t bring themselves to hate him too much, albeit they seem to enjoy mocking Birmingham for retiring his No 22 shirt so early.
(Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
Bellingham can fulfil his ambitions without playing in English football. But there still must be a particular determination to win something in his home nation, and things are set up nicely. This weekend features a Champions League final at Wembley, and in four years, the European Championship final will be there too.
That ambition can wait. For now, Bellingham has the perfect opportunity to write himself into history. Other English talents have won the Champions Laegue while playing for a foreign side. But by winning the Champions League with a foreign team in England, Bellingham would be unique.
(Top photo photo: Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images)
