Jude Bellingham is already having an incredible 23/24 season... but is he arguably the best player on the planet right now?
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00:00 I don't think he's going to finish the season on 47 league goals, although at this point I wouldn't
00:05 entirely rule out, but clearly something is going on between his transfer from Dortmund to Madrid.
00:10 Something is happening with the way he's playing football, which is making him far more dangerous
00:14 in the opposition box. And not just the most surface level way of looking at this, this is
00:18 how Real Madrid have been setting up with Bellingham in the side this season. He has been the very tip
00:23 of the diamond playing in this number 10 role with a midfield three, not even including Modric
00:28 and Kroos most of the time in behind him. Now just this in of itself is incredibly interesting
00:33 because it's completely different to how he was used at Dortmund. Now Dortmund are quite tactically
00:38 flexible. You would quite often see him on the left of a midfield three, the same kind of position
00:41 you see in Bringlem, but a lot of the time what they would do, can my brain figure all this out?
00:46 Yes, it can, is you would be deployed as the right hand side in a double pivot of a 4-2-3-1.
00:54 Now just think about that for a second, like how many examples in the history of football can you
00:59 think of where a top, top team has gone and paid top, top money for a player who was predominantly
01:05 played in a deep midfield role and then not only stuck them immediately in at number 10,
01:10 but just sort of said, go on, if you want to be the nine as well, just feel free. But the thing is,
01:15 there was a very good reason for Dortmund using him in this position. That's because if you just
01:19 look at it, he's right in the very centre of the pitch. That is of all the positions in this lineup,
01:24 the one who's going to see the ball the most. It's a position which allowed him to do all the
01:28 things he's really good at doing. He can get involved in Dortmund's build-up phase when
01:32 they're working it around the back. He can act as a screen in front of the back four. He can get on
01:36 it. He can drive it further up the pitch and as play develops and situations allow, he can get
01:42 into this front line and sort of play as a 10 as well. Now you'll have heard this a million times
01:46 by now, the whole reason he had the number 22 when he was coming through at Birmingham, because one
01:50 of his coaches was like, oh wow, you're a great defensive midfielder and central midfielder and
01:55 attacking midfielder. So like a four, an eight and a 10 will add all those up, but it's kind of a,
02:00 it's kind of a good gag, but also it was completely true. And so Dortmund stuck him in a position
02:06 where every single game he was able to contribute to the play here, to the play here and to the play
02:11 here and doing all these jobs combined, he would still post eight or nine out of 10 every single
02:17 week for all these different jobs. But you see, here's the thing, right? You've probably got a
02:22 job and if you don't know, you definitely remember having one. I'm willing to bet you had to do way
02:28 more in that job than you were actually supposed to. Maybe you were hired to do like one thing,
02:32 which is the way the place worked, ended up having to do two or three others sometimes as well. And
02:36 maybe you like Bellingham would give eight or nine out of 10 and all these different roles every
02:41 single day you were there. But in the back of your mind, you were probably thinking, if I just
02:45 focused on the thing I was hired for, the thing I'm really good at, I wouldn't be given eight or
02:51 nine out of 10s everywhere. I could give you a 10 consistently at that one thing. And that is
02:57 in essence what Real Madrid have done with Bellingham. Like they've looked at him and thought,
03:00 yeah, sure. You can contribute in every single area of the pitch, but this is Real Madrid.
03:06 Every other player who's here is here because they are great in that position. So let's just give you
03:12 a job and you can do that instead. And so with the way they have set this team up with the midfield
03:18 diamond, the job they have given Jude Bellingham to do is simply kill teams. Bellingham is the 10
03:26 in a diamond, sure. But it's also completely accurate to look at this as a 4-3-3 with
03:31 Bellingham right at the top, playing as a false nine and dropping back into the space. But if we
03:36 look at the goals he's already scored for Madrid, these are not the opportunities or the chances or
03:41 even the finishes you would expect of a player playing as a midfielder with license to get into
03:46 the box. They are out and out centre forward goals. His link-up play around the box and how he works
03:52 with the other forwards is exemplary, yes, but he's not holding that position. When he sees the
03:57 kind of gap a centre forward should be filling, he is just filling it. And it has led in the few
04:03 short months since he's left Dortmund to creating an entirely different player. It's a small sample
04:08 size, but let me just show you a few select stats from last season's Bundesliga and this season's
04:12 La Liga and you'll see just how drastic this is. So per 90 minutes last season in the league, Jude
04:18 Bellingham was posting 3.7 tackles or interceptions per game. And this put him comfortably in the top
04:24 10%, possibly even the top 5% of midfielders in Europe in that particular stat. He was winning
04:30 the ball back a lot because that was a major part of his role. He was carrying the ball on average
04:34 about 264 yards every single game, which again puts him right in the very top percentage of that
04:40 bracket across Europe because his job was when he got on the ball in deep areas to then help the
04:46 team move it forward, usually using his dribbling skills. Last season he was making about one and a
04:50 half passes into the penalty area every single game, again, because he was allowed and encouraged
04:55 to be in that part of the pitch, but it wasn't his main responsibility. And finally, the average
05:00 distance of all the shots he took in the league was 18 yards from goal. So yes, he would get it
05:05 in the box and yes, he would shoot from range, but on average, pretty much every chance he was
05:09 trying to take came from outside or just on the edge of the penalty area. So you can visualise
05:14 this kind of player in your head, can't you? He's an all-rounder, he's good at winning the ball back,
05:17 so he does that a lot. He's really good on the ball, so he carries the ball up the pitch a lot,
05:21 and he's good in the final third as well, so he passes the ball into the box and occasionally
05:25 he'll have a pop from distance. He does a little bit of everything. Now, while it is a small sample
05:29 size, I'll grant you, let's just compare those numbers to this season so far. Per 90, Jude
05:34 Bellingham is making about 1.2 tackles or interceptions per game. He is carrying the ball
05:40 on average 117 yards. He's making 3.2 passes into the penalty area per 90, and finally, the average
05:49 distance of his shots is just under 10 yards. And then obviously, just to add on top of that,
05:54 he scored five goals in four games. That is a profile of a player who can win the ball back,
05:59 sure, but he doesn't worry about it, and he can carry the ball up the pitch, sure,
06:03 but he doesn't worry about it. What he does worry about is how he can f*** you up.
06:07 And this is a grotesque oversimplification, but if you just look at the formation, you can see
06:11 exactly what it is Real Madrid are trying to do. They have locked this area down, they have taken
06:16 care of all the jobs here, and they have even split the two attacking players. They have put
06:21 Jude Bellingham in the most important area of the pitch when it comes to creating chances and
06:26 scoring goals, and just said, "Go where you want, do what you want." And the results, as you've seen,
06:32 have been incredible. But the thing is, my dear friends, none of that makes him the best player
06:38 in the world. He's just having a really good attacking run, and loads of other number 10s
06:42 will do similar things, post similar numbers, have similar highlight reels across the course
06:48 of the season. So why then is Bellingham so different? It's because it isn't actually
06:53 accurate to say they've given him a free roll as a number 10. Like, they have. He pushes forward
06:58 into the box, he drops wide, he drops into the midfield, he has complete freedom to do what he
07:02 wants to do in that role, but he's actually got complete freedom to just do what he wants to do
07:08 full stop. Bellingham isn't making as many tackles or interceptions per game, but the ones he is
07:14 making are absolutely vital. And likewise, he isn't getting on the ball in deep areas and driving
07:19 it up the pitch as much as he was, but when he is doing it, it's because the game sort of demands
07:24 he does it. Real Madrid are struggling to play through or go around, so he just takes himself
07:28 out of this position and goes where he needs to go. At Real Madrid, his number one job is to look
07:34 for goal scoring opportunities, either for himself or for his teammates, but he also has the license
07:39 to simply read the entire game state and decide where he needs to be to have the biggest possible
07:45 impact. And just that, like, staggering range of ability, that power to exert your influence across
07:52 a game, regardless of what state it's currently in, whether you're attacking or defending, whether
07:56 you're under pressure or on top, to just look across the entire pitch and think, "Where can I
08:01 make the maximum possible impact here?" and then be in a system designed to allow you to do that,
08:07 that legitimately puts you in the conversation for best player in the world right now.
08:12 And even if you haven't watched Real Madrid, there was a really good example of this in the England
08:17 game. Like, England kind of want to be a 4-3-3, but he was definitely playing more as a 10,
08:21 albeit in a totally different system, but he gets on the ball wide left because that's where he felt
08:26 he needed to impact the game. The center of the pitch was really congested, there wasn't too much
08:30 he could do over there, so he recognized the space developing and he went out to try and make
08:34 something happen. But as soon as he does make that thing happen, he lays the ball off to Phil
08:38 Foden, he then reassesses the situation and realizes that some space has developed right in
08:44 the most dangerous area of the pitch. So rather than doing what a number 10 would do in that
08:48 situation, which is either keep your position out wide in case the ball gets recycled or move to the
08:53 edge of the box to kind of get yourself set in case the ball gets turned over, he just recognizes it
08:58 and he goes into the center forward area of the pitch, the ball breaks loose and he scores.
09:03 And that's the thing about most of the goals he scored this season, like none of them represent
09:07 like technical brilliance or particularly mind-blowing to watch, but they do represent
09:12 the sort of striker's instinct you would expect a 30-year-old 200 goal forward to have. And he's
09:20 a 20-year-old who last season was playing in a double pivot. Anyway, I'm going to stop there
09:24 because I could genuinely spend about half an hour just talking about the handful of games
09:28 he's played this season. He is easily the most fascinating, interesting, exciting, must-watch
09:34 player in world football right now. And he's English, so that's nice. As ever though, please
09:38 do head down to the comments and let us know your thoughts on his opening few performances for Real
09:42 Madrid as well as the two England games, because one was great and one wasn't, so there's a whole
09:46 other thing to be said there. And while you're here, please do subscribe to 442 on YouTube. We
09:50 are so close to 442 subscribers and me, a nerd, really wants that. Meantime though, grab me on
09:58 Instagram threads, @AdamCleary, C-L-E-A-Y, 442 socials in the corner. We are on the last week
10:05 of the beautiful Newcastle United issue. Please do buy that from all good retailers and the crap
10:09 ones as well. And until next time, I've been Adam Cleary, that's been Jude Bellingham,
10:14 and I'll see you soon. Goodbye.