Perhaps it should be made mandatory that any television replay of Rodrygo’s 12th-minute goal goes back far enough to include Jude Bellingham’s contribution. Not many players would have been able to control the looping ball that Dani Carvajal, Madrid’s right-back, had sent high into the sky. Yet Bellingham’s touch to kill the ball was exquisite: a genuine A-lister playing at the point of maximum expression.
Bellingham wanted to do more than just keep the ball in close proximity. For a player with his uncommon gifts, it was not enough just to maintain possession. He wanted to set his team away, quickly, devastatingly. His movement to elude Ruben Dias, the nearest defender, was all part of the same exercise. And, in that split second, you could hear a flicker of trepidation coming back from the stands.
That noise: every regular match-goer will know what it sounds like when apprehension takes hold of a crowd.
The home fans could recognise his brilliance. They longed for an offside decision to deny Rodrygo his goal. There was no intervention and, as the visiting team celebrated, we were reminded why Bellingham is an ideal wearer of Madrid’s No 5 shirt — the number, as he knew when he chose it, that Zinedine Zidane used to grace.
GO FURTHER
Real Madrid beat Man City on penalties: Bellingham brilliance and who can stop Ancelotti’s team?
