Graham Hunter
A great deal of the past few days in LaLiga has been taken up with the subject of Real Madrid‘s Jude Bellingham and how to interpret, and punish, his profanity that resulted in a red card in Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Osasuna.
But not a lot of consideration has been given to how loud and long Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola must have sworn about the brilliant Englishman over the past couple of years. Turning the air sky blue, you might say.
City and Madrid meet up again on Wednesday in an all-or-nothing Champions League knockout match, with Madrid taking a 3-2 first-leg lead back with them to the Bernabéu. Guardiola is no doubt still cursing that Bellingham, who scored Madrid’s late winner at the Etihad last week, will be dressed in white rather than City colors, as was his explicit intention.
In January 2023, I was in a meeting in London with somebody who is unimpeachably close to City’s legendary, record-breaking coach. I was informed with 100% authority that City had only two major transfer targets that summer: one being RB Leipzig defender Josko Gvardiol; the other was Borussia Dortmund midfielder Bellingham.
The Croatia defender joined and, across the three times City have played Madrid since, he has shone with a goal and an assist. But Bellingham turned down the reigning English and European champions, opted against the chance to work for one of the all-time great football coaches in Guardiola (a chance he’ll now never have again) and chose a notoriously demanding, political club where both the language and culture were wholly new to this ferociously talented and ambitious prodigy.
The nearest Bellingham has come to confirming City made him a tantalizing offer came when he said: “Guided by my family I spoke to a lot of clubs in my last season at Dortmund … but when Madrid called I didn’t have to think twice.”
Although there is still scope for City and their slightly beleaguered guru to strike back and even the balance on Wednesday, it’s been a pretty good choice for Bellingham when you compare his fortunes to those of Guardiola & Co. Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti, and his English No. 5, are simultaneously reigning Spanish and European champions for only the third time since 1958, while City have not only seen their Champions League status decline this season but their English dominance too.
The moment when Bellingham chose Madrid over City became a significant tilt in the balance of power. But not just on the pitch either.
I’m guided by the same unimpeachable source on Manchester City that their work in trying to convince the very best footballers, particularly if they are already in their peak, to come and live in the city of Manchester with its punishing climate and how far it is from the other European capitals, is extremely tough going. They’re exceptional in what they offer, how they offer it, and in terms of promising superb treatment. But the No. 1 “extra” element, beyond salary, was Guardiola himself.
The attraction of working under him and successfully mastering the brand of football with which he’s become associated in the Premier League has proven tremendously alluring over and over again. But not to Bellingham.
There was a clue to his rationale after he scored his first Champions League goal for Los Blancos, in added time, in a 1-0 victory over Union Berlin at the beginning of last season. That night I asked him about the significance of the moment and he told me that he had been lucky enough to have a television in his bedroom from the age of about 12 or 13 and that he’d “watched Madrid come back to win in unbelievable circumstances over and over again.” It had been for moments like that that the youngster had turned his back on England’s champions and opted for legend, history, tradition and the lure of a different kind of glory instead.
Nor is it, by any means, the first time Madrid have stripped the city of Manchester of a talent that they massively desired. The best other example, given that Cristiano Ronaldo had already starred at Old Trafford before he made his then-world record move to the Bernabéu, came in the shape of Gareth Bale.
Unlike Bellingham, still a youthful prodigy when he signed for Ancelotti’s team, the Wales winger was an established star and desired by the majority of the world’s top clubs when he was leaving Tottenham Hotspur. Manchester United still had Ryan Giggs on their coaching staff at the time and he made a personal phone call to his international teammate, promising that United would pay Spurs the same transfer fee and would even hand Bale higher wages than Madrid were offering — but the answer was still no.
Bale and Bellingham actively chose Madrid — something which Ronaldo did during his final year when, despite United and Madrid having agreed a fee, Sir Alex Ferguson demanded that the Portugal captain stay for one more season.
That was when the then-Barcelona vice-president Ferran Soriano, now long-established as a behemoth executive at City, went directly to Ronaldo and his agent to offer them a better salary if they would dump Madrid and come to Barcelona at the end of the season instead. Just like Bale and Bellingham, Ronaldo turned him down, as his irrevocable choice was to play for Real Madrid.
Nobody can really pretend it’s specifically because Madrid have won so many LaLiga or Copa del Rey titles that, if salary concerns are equal, so many of the world’s elite stars will choose Real Madrid over just about anywhere else. It’s because of the glamour and irresistible glory attached to winning over and again on floodlight Tuesday and Wednesday nights until Europe kneels and another glorious Champions League final beckons.
Anyone young enough to be playing professional football has never seen Madrid lose a European final. In fact there are a multitude of fans and journalists who have never seen that either — the last time was 42 years ago. Now Bellingham has the chance to further underline, to himself and to anybody else who’s interested, that he chose well in selecting his current employer rather than Manchester City for the next stage of his career.
There are only two sides he’s played against more regularly than Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Union Berlin, and it was not until last week that he truly knew what the taste of victory was against Manchester’s Sky Blues. He played and scored against them aged 17 as he tried six times to get the better of them but failed, along with his Borussia Dortmund colleagues. Last season, while his converted penalty in the shootout helped put Los Blancos into the Champions League semifinals, it was technically yet another draw (after 90 and then 120 minutes) to go with his previous three defeats and two draws.
This Wednesday he comes up against Guardiola’s side with his last-minute goal the difference in the tie, with the row over that controversial red card rumbling on and with the entire Bernabéu just aching to sing “Hey Jude” once again. Time for Bellingham to deliver again. I swear it is.
