Two versions of the same player
Seven goals in eight matches for England at the World Cup. Eight goals in 40 matches for Real Madrid across a whole season. Same player, same twelve months, two different footballers.
Jude Bellingham finished the tournament in North America with England in third place and his reputation restored. He arrived at it off the back of the quietest club campaign of his career in Spain. Five assists went with those eight goals, a long way from the 23 goals and 13 assists he produced in his first season at the Bernabeu, or the 14 and 13 that followed in his second.
Opta’s numbers point at where he was standing rather than how he was playing. Under Thomas Tuchel, Bellingham spent 71% of his World Cup minutes as a No. 10 behind Harry Kane. At Real Madrid last season, only 28% of his LaLiga minutes came in that role. The rest he spent deeper, in central midfield, further from the goal he keeps ending up in.
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What Mourinho inherits
Jose Mourinho is back in the Madrid dugout 13 years after he left, and the squad handed to him has been rebuilt. Yan Diomande cost a reported club record 140 million euros from RB Leipzig. Marc Cucurella arrived from Chelsea shortly before winning the World Cup with Spain. Denzel Dumfries came in from Inter, Bernardo Silva and Ibrahima Konate on free transfers from the Premier League.
The front three picks itself. Kylian Mbappe scored 42 goals in all competitions last season and 10 more for France in the summer. Vinicius Junior added 22 and signed a new deal at the Bernabeu instead of leaving for Arsenal. Diomande completed 118 dribbles across Europe’s top five leagues last season, a total only Lamine Yamal bettered.
That leaves one obvious space behind them. Bellingham filled exactly that space for England for a month and looked like the player Madrid paid for.
The precedent
Mourinho has produced attacking numbers in Madrid before that nobody expected of him. His 2011-12 side scored 121 goals in 38 league games, still the most any team has managed in a single LaLiga season since 1929, and took 100 points with 16 away wins that remain a competition record.
Madrid do not start yet. Their opener against Espanyol was pushed back a week because of how deep their players went at the World Cup. Mourinho gets the extra days. He will need them to settle where Bellingham stands.
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