It was like Jude Bellingham knew. He had just scored his first clásico goal, a cartoon kick ripped from Roy of the Rovers, Hot-Shot Hamish battering the ball through the net from 28 yards, but he didn’t do his thing, not this time. There was a tug at the Real Madrid badge on his shirt, a hint of frustration let loose, but no smile and no celebration, arms open wide. Instantly iconic, a ritual performed at the Cathedral, the church of Maradona and everywhere else, given 11 outings already, this time it was absent. There was no greater stage than the one he trod, no moment like this, absurd enough as it was, but his work here was not done.
Not yet, but it would be. There is always time for more even when it is slipping away, especially when it is slipping away. If Madrid’s fans had missed the celebration then, Bellingham doing That Bellingham Thing, there would be another chance, an opportunity to do it better, and he would do all he could to make it so. So too would Antonio Rüdiger.
When Bellingham scored the goal that equalised in his debut against Barcelona, making it 1-1 68 minutes into Saturday afternoon’s clásico, down on the Madrid bench Nacho Fernández wore a face that said: “Bloody hell, did you see that?!” When he scored the goal that won it in the 92nd minute and this time did do his celebration, Nacho leapt right out of there while the rest of his teammates ran after the Englishman. Arms wide, Bellingham nodded. Yes, this really had happened. Behind him Rüdiger was shouting: “Again, again, again. Do it again for them.” So when they had finished embracing him, the victory that took them top virtually secure, he did.
Standing in front of the Montjuïc stand, there he was once more: part Gladiator, part Christ the Redeemer. And if that sounds ridiculous, it is because it is. All of it is. “I’ve just phoned home,” Bellingham said afterwards. “It was hard to hear them with all the noise, but there was a bit of emotion thinking about all the times I watched this game on the sofa with my brother, my parents. I said it was my turn to experience it, to make an impression.”
Some impression. Montjuïc hadn’t seen an English performance like this since Sally Gunnell was going for gold. This fixture may never have done. Gary Lineker scored a hat-trick against Real Madrid. David Beckham’s first clásico made a hero of him. Steve McManaman scored at the Camp Nou, and in a European Cup semi-final. Laurie Cunningham was handed a standing ovation, by Barcelona’s fans. Michael Owen too scored in a clasico, Barcelona beaten at the Bernabéu. But this? This was something else, is something else.
The greatest rivalry there is, the clásico has been many things over the years, but never the Beatles versus the Stones. This time, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood were in the directors’ box and Barcelona wore the Stones’ tongue logo on their shirts – a limited edition release that’s yours for just €399 (£348), or €2,999 (£2,620) if you want the version signed by the men’s and women’s teams – while facing them was the man who has the Bernabéu singing Hey Jude. It was, they said, the rock’n’roll clasico, the battle of the bands; it was also a gift, asking for it, all this column could do to not join in, ignoring that long list of song titles it had prepared specially and finally giving up on getting off of my cloud.
“Stones 1, Beatles 2” said the headline in AS. “Jude sticks out his tongue,” said the front of Marca. Barcelona can’t get no satisfaction, said just about everyone else. Singing puns were everywhere; he had provided the “music and the lyrics” and won the game “a cappella,” whatever that’s supposed to mean; they had “danced to Bellingham’s beat”. “The Beatles have always been our favourite group,” declared Real Madrid’s X account. The player posted a cartoon of him, Federico Valverde, Eduardo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouaméni crossing Abbey Road.
“Lord Bellingham,” declared the front page of AS. Elsewhere, “Sir Bellingham” was “the entire British Empire”, which seemed a bit harsh, and “a dictator” imposing his will, which was even worse. He was Madrid’s satanic majesty, of course. He was also their Mr Wolf, rescuing them again, which was better and which was the point. Because this is not just one game – even if it is the game, even if no Madrid player had scored two in his first visit to Barcelona since 1947 – it is all of them. He is, almost everyone agrees, in the best form of any footballer in the world; there are even those that think so at Barcelona, even if they can’t say it.
“Everything’s going right,” Bellingham said.
Even when it didn’t seem to be. Engaged in a hugely enjoyable battle with Gavi, the kind that has mutual admiration written all over it, this hadn’t been the easiest game. “I don’t think I or my teammates were at our best,” Bellingham admitted, but he had smashed in an astonishing equaliser to give Madrid hope – “I had spent the last few weeks saying I need to try from outside the area” – and then gone and scored the late winner. “It plays with your heart but I love the comebacks,” he said, and it shows: the clock showed 91min 11sec when he nudged the winner through Marc-André ter Stegen’s legs. Cameras caught the injured Pedri muttering what a big bum Bellingham has – how lucky he had been, in other words – but if that ball had indeed fallen at his feet, it’s happened so often it no longer looks like fortune. He got the winner against Union Berlin in the 94th minute and Getafe in the 95th.
Bellingham has studied those movements. The kid who wore 22 at Birmingham because he was a No 4, 8 and a 10 wrapped in one, wears No 5 and, in the absence of Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappé, has become a false 9. Ancelotti showed him videos of those moments at Dortmund when he got closest to the area yet even he admits he is “surprised” at how well it has gone. On Saturday he declared that Bellingham can reach 20 or 25 goals “easily” this season and that looks conservative now. He has scored 10 in 10 league games and one in each of his three Champions League games, already a single goal off his entire total from last year. “Even he didn’t expect so many,” Luka Modric beamed.
They depend on him. Bellingham has 13 of Madrid’s 29 goals; seven of their 12 wins have come directly from him. There’s no stat padding here, no wild shooting. Scored from just 19 shots, only one of his 10 league goals – the third in a 3-0 win at Girona – could be considered unimportant, and only because he had provided a brilliant assist with the outside of his boot for the opener. On his debut, he scored the second to make victory safe at San Mames. One down at Almería, he made it 1-1 and 2-1. He scored the only goal at Celta in the 81st minute, the first and second against Osasuna, and now the equaliser and winner against Barcelona. As for Europe, against Braga he made it 2-0 in a 2-1 win, scored the winner against Berlin and in Napoli his goal put them 2-1 up in a 3-2 win. That night, they compared him to Diego Maradona.
“That’s a bit much,” Bellingham said. But with a goal that good in that place, it was inevitable. After all, that was yet another flattering comparison among many. He had been likened to Raúl, Zidane and Ronaldo. And Jermaine Defoe, although that’s him and Joselu (or Peter Crouch, as Bellingham calls him) messing about together. He has even been likened to Alfredo Di Stéfano, the player that changed Madrid’s history for ever, who did it all. He is, wrote Ramon Besa in El País, “a soloist capable of being the whole orchestra”.
Top scorer in La Liga coming into the clásico, he had three assists, had won more duels than anyone else – Gavi is top now – and there is a reason he is the most fouled player in Spain. On Saturday his was the last touch of the game: a defensive header. It is not just the goals; it is the whole thing, the personality above all, the assuredness: “the leadership at 20” as Ancelotti keeps saying. The way that others embrace him, deferring to him. Raúl said he had never seen anything like it and that was before he had even played. It was there already in his presentation; it is there in that celebration, symbolic somehow: master of all he surveys. It’s there in the matches. No nerves, it’s just a game. One he is very, very good at.
Girona 1-0 Celta Vigo, Cádiz 2-2 Sevilla, Real Mallorca 0-0 Getafe, Barcelona 1-2 Real Madrid, Almería 1-2 Las Palmas, Atlético Madrid 2-1 Alavés, Athletic Bilbao 2-2 Valencia, Rayo Vallecano 2-2 Real Sociedad, Real Betis 2-1 Osasuna
Bellingham, bloody hell. It has been barely believable and it’s not the usual suspects saying these things, blown away by the silliness of it all; it is footballers. At Real Madrid, for goodness sake. This is them looking at him, making comparisons with the best, shocked at what they’re seeing daily. “Our fans got used to Cristiano Ronaldo, now they have Jude,” Vinícius Júnior said. “He’s only just arrived and it is like he’s been here ages. It’s not coincidence: he’s a top lad, an extraordinary talent,” Modric said. Take a look at their tweets: “Just different” – David Alaba. “HIM” – Thibaut Courtois. “The boy” – Brahim. The exploding head emojis from Rodrygo.
And if that feels a little public to be proof, as Bellingham led his teammates to the 150 or so fans high in the stand at the end of his first clásico, Modric approached him, a huge grin on his face shouting: “What a sign[ing]! What a sign[ing]!” Ancelotti called him “a star who has fallen here”. As for Rüdiger, he called on him to do it again.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Real Madrid | 11 | 15 | 28 |
| 2 | Girona | 11 | 12 | 28 |
| 3 | Atletico Madrid | 10 | 16 | 25 |
| 4 | Barcelona | 11 | 11 | 24 |
| 5 | Real Sociedad | 11 | 6 | 19 |
| 6 | Athletic Bilbao | 11 | 6 | 18 |
| 7 | Rayo Vallecano | 11 | -1 | 17 |
| 8 | Real Betis | 11 | -1 | 17 |
| 9 | Valencia | 11 | 1 | 15 |
| 10 | Las Palmas | 11 | -2 | 14 |
| 11 | Osasuna | 11 | -4 | 13 |
| 12 | Getafe | 11 | -3 | 12 |
| 13 | Sevilla | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| 14 | Cadiz | 11 | -6 | 10 |
| 15 | Mallorca | 11 | -4 | 9 |
| 16 | Villarreal | 10 | -4 | 9 |
| 17 | Alaves | 11 | -7 | 9 |
| 18 | Celta Vigo | 11 | -9 | 6 |
| 19 | Granada | 10 | -10 | 6 |
| 20 | Almeria | 11 | -17 | 3 |
