Jude Bellingham is 20 years old. He has just been named LaLiga’s player of the year after scoring 19 goals to fire Real Madrid to the league title in his debut season at arguably the world’s biggest club. On Saturday, he’ll play a Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium, before flying off to star for England at this summer’s European Championships.
It’s a dizzying trajectory, ticking off a lifelong checklist of career aspirations in just a few months. Surely even Bellingham — whose quiet self-confidence and steely ambition come across in every performance on the field, and every public appearance off it — couldn’t have expected to achieve quite so much, so soon?
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“Yeah, I’ve got to be honest, probably, yeah,” he said, smiling, speaking to a small group of journalists at Madrid’s training ground on Monday, five days before the biggest game of his career to date. “I always thought I could reach this level. This was always the level I wanted to play at. I probably never realized it would happen so quickly.”
