Jude Bellingham’s performance against Manchester City in the quarter-final first leg on Tuesday sparked widespread comment on his recent form in Spain.
For the first time since his summer arrival – for an initial fee of €103m (£88m; $110m at current rates) plus a possible additional 30 per cent in add-ons, a deal which could become a record of the club – it has been suggested that he is going through something of a slump.
Bellingham’s performances have, on the whole, been exceptional – and although he has not scored a goal since the start of February, he is La Liga’s top scorer with 16. No other Madrid player has more than his 20 goals in all competitions, nor his 10 assists. (although Vinicius Junior also has 10).
His impact has been unprecedented, on and off the pitch, playing for (Madrid fans would say) the biggest club in the world, in a new league and in a more advanced, unfamiliar position that has often seen him shoulder the burden left by Karim. The surprise departure of Benzema.
Bellingham has been Madrid’s big player, or their match-winner, on numerous occasions during the 2023-24 season – but that wasn’t the story on Tuesday night, as Carlo Ancelotti’s side made 3-3 draw against City.
“He didn’t score, but we scored three goals, the work in attack was very good,” said the Madrid coach when asked about the 20-year-old Englishman during his post-match press conference .
“Vinicius, Bellingham and Federico Valverde did a fantastic defensive job and that allowed us to have more control.”
Ancelotti opted to make key tactical changes for the City match. He placed Rodrygo on his preferred left flank, moving Vinicius Jr to a more central position. He prepared his team to play on the counterattack, asking his players to move the ball quickly and try less elaborate and more direct connections, especially in transitions.
In La Liga (and often the Champions League too), Madrid are used to dominating the game – meeting teams who set up defensively against them.
Against City, Madrid had just 39% possession and Bellingham was unable to link up with Vinicius Jr and Rodrygo like he has this season. This also reduced the opportunities for his highly successful box crash races.
The passing network map below also shows, based on the color of the Bellingham circle, that it did not contribute enormously in terms of passing value (i.e. contribution to the chances of goal of his team). This has very rarely been the case.
Madrid’s 4-4-2 shape out of possession meant that he and Valverde had a disciplined role off the ball to close down City’s defenders (he was responsible for putting pressure on Ruben Dias in particular), trying to force them to making mistakes, which often worked out well.
Tuesday’s match was a chaotic encounter between two giants, another wild entry into this brilliant modern European rivalry (Madrid and City have now scored 23 goals in their last five meetings), but it also had its tactical themes, as ‘explain Athleticism Thomas Harris. From Madrid’s point of view, their game plan was at least partially successful.
Early Wednesday morning, back at Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex, it was time to take stock of the match. Ancelotti and his colleagues analyzed everything that happened, including Bellingham’s performance.
Madrid coaching staff sources interviewed for this article – like all sources cited here, they preferred to remain anonymous to protect their position – said Bellingham may not have had its “most brilliant,” but that he had done the “dirty work” assigned to him. very good for him.
They also recognized that he was the player whose regular style suffered most from the change in tactical approach – which made Rodrygo the main protagonist of the attack.
“We wanted to keep Rodrygo on the left because his form was better than Bellingham’s and that penalized Jude,” said one of the coaching staff sources. “Normally it’s the other way around and Rodrygo has to sacrifice more for the team.”
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Last season’s humiliating defeat to Pep Guardiola’s side (4-0 at the Etihad in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final) sparked concerns in Madrid about the gap between them and City. By 2022, they had prevailed against their English rivals – but only their individual genius propelled them past superior opponents.
These concerns only had an impact on the club’s thinking in the medium term. There was no knee-jerk reaction — and as far as Bellingham was concerned, the deal to sign him was pretty much done by the time they played. But Tuesday’s reunion with City was exactly the type of occasion where one hoped his signing would make a difference.
Bellingham also faced the club he refused to sign up for at the Bernabeu. He was expected to play a central role, and the fact that he didn’t probably factored into some fans’ disappointment. As you might perhaps expect from a player of his stature – and the club he plays for – some commentators in the Spanish media were quick to criticize.
From August to December – when Bellingham was the undisputed leader of a Real Madrid team depleted by Vinicius Jr’s injury – he scored 17 goals and provided five assists in 21 matches. Since then, he has contributed three goals and five assists in 12 appearances.
However, Madrid sources emphasize that they have no concerns about Bellingham’s recent performances.
“Physically, he is not having his best moment but we are not worried, all players go through these moments,” say sources from the technical staff. “And his first part of the season was out of the ordinary.”
Other sources at Valdebebas have recently highlighted how injury and the two-match suspension he served after being sent off at Valencia (for protesting the denial of their stoppage-time winner) could have affected his pace .
“The stops were detrimental as he had to slow down as he started to pick up speed again,” they said.
And despite some signs of fatigue during Tuesday’s match, sources in Madrid’s fitness department, led by Antonio Pintus, saw nothing abnormal.
“He worked a lot in the defensive phase then appeared less in the offensive phase,” they said.
“He played in a position that allowed him to stand out less.”
(Top photo: David Ramos/Getty Images)