That one’s going straight in a frame: Jude Bellingham standing before the sheer red wall of the noisiest stand of the most emblematic ground in Spain, the place they call the cathedral, arms spread wide, taking it all in. He was just 36 minutes into his debut for Real Madrid and the Englishman already had his first goal and the photo to go with it. The new man and his new teammates, running to join him: Aurélien Tchouaméni, then Dani Carvajal, then Vinícius Júnior, and then the rest of them, all in white. So this is what it’s like.
This is what he’s like too. The friendlies impressed, but this was the real thing, at a real stadium redolent with history and tradition, few better places to start. Away, sure, but this is a classic, against Athletic Bilbao, one of only three teams never relegated. It was marked with an assured 2-0 win, a clean sheet for Andriy Lunin, standing in for the injured Thibaut Courtois, at least until Kepa Arrizabaga arrives on loan, and a debut goal for Bellingham delivered early.
It was not even really about the goal, although that provided the portrait. It was more … well, everything really. Not dramatic, not wild, just very, very good. “It feels like Jude Bellingham has been a Real Madrid player for a long time; he is out of the ordinary,” Carlo Ancelotti said.
Bellingham said: “I am not going to get too excited by the goal and the win. I’ve been taught that if you try to hit the target then you give yourself a chance. I didn’t get the best contact with it, I got a bit lucky, but I hit the target and it went in.”
A moment before his goal on an impressive opening night he had been lining up an almost cartoonish volley. Seeing Fede Valverde’s cross sailing towards him, shifting his body sideways on, he was watching the ball on to his foot. Until, that was, Iñigo Ruiz de Galarreta had appeared and modded it away from him. Bellingham rubbed his face, a gesture that said that was on the one, but if the moment had gone it was soon back.
Twice, in fact. He almost connected with a low Vinícius cross, dashing in at the near post, ready to apply the flicked finish. And then David Alaba’s corner sought him out – and it really did. Dropping on to his right foot, he connected with the volley. It wasn’t as comic-book as the previous chance might have been but it worked, the ball hitting the turf and looping up beyond Unai Simon and into the net. Madrid, already leading through Rodrygo Goes’s near post shot, were two up and Bellingham was standing there, cool as they come.
His teammates came to embrace him; when they broke again, he stood once more. It wasn’t provocative – although Iker Muniain, the Athletic Bilbao captain, pointed towards him – more an act of arrival, of belonging. Of standing tall. Confident here, his passing clean throughout, this isn’t a player who will be overawed by anything. Who seemed to be enjoying this. And then he turned and pointed to the main stand where Madrid fans, his fans, were sitting.
He turned his back on the Premier League – going there might have been easier, he said – to take on a third league and the biggest club of them all aged just 19. Not many do it. He is the first Englishman to play for Madrid since 2007, when David Beckham departed having just won his first La Liga title, four years in. Beckham had scored 126 seconds into his debut. Steve McManaman and Michael Owen provided assists on theirs. Laurie Cunningham scored twice. Jonathan Woodgate scored too, although it was an own goal and there was a red card to go with it.
This, then, may not be so unusual, and it is no guarantee, but those fans like him already. There is something about him; in Madrid there is a willingness to see in him a player that could mark an era here, to believe they are witnessing the birth of someone genuinely different. A curious, seductive combination of styles – on Spanish radio, one commentator kept insisting he had visions of Zidane, a tall, elegant stride, a soft touch – and roles. He plays at the top of he diamond. That, at least, is the theory; instead, he is kind of everywhere. Late on, when the changes came and Luka Modric and Toni Kroos appeared, he moved to the left.
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The first most notable moments were tackles: he slid in on Nico Williams twice, both of them perfectly timed and intercepted ahead of Iker Muniain. When he had the ball, there was an awareness which allowed him to collect in space, turn and face opponents, see runners going beyond him. He wanted the ball; just as importantly, teammates wanted him to have it.
It wasn’t hard to see why: Athletic and graceful with it, what really stood out was his own movement: there was the lovely footwork that took him away from Óscar De Marco and the run beyond Iñigo Lekue and Iñigo Ruiz de Galarreta. Above all though, it was the sense of assuredness, of a man in in control, at ease, standing there to be seen.