Carlo Ancelotti can no longer get his head around Bellingham
Have you ever seen a player like Jude Bellingham? The coaching legend Carlo Ancelotti hasn't. After the next Champions League win, the Real Madrid coach goes into raptures and never stops praising the player.
Carlo Ancelotti has put former BVB superstar Jude Bellingham at least on a par with one of the best footballers of all time, Zinédine Zidane, after his performance in Real Madrid's 4:2 (2:1) win over SSC Napoli in the Champions League. He dominated the Real midfield between 2001 and 2006 and transformed soccer into the modern era with his play. Like Bellingham now, the Frenchman wore the number 5 shirt.
The Whites' coach, who also coached Zidane early in his career at Juventus, was deeply impressed by the performance of the 20-year-old Englishman Bellingham on Wednesday. He moved from the Bundesliga to the Spanish capital in the summer for the bargain price of just 103 million euros. Since then, he has scored 15 goals and provided four assists in just 16 games. Next year, he could compete with his former BVB teammate Erling Haaland for the title of the best player in the world, the Ballon d'Or.
"Zidane couldn't do that"
It's not that far yet. The future remains unwritten, but the past is an open book. Bellingham added a few new sentences to the already impressive first pages of his Real campaign against Napoli. He not only contributed a goal, the one that made it 2-1 at the interval, but also drove the Whites to their fifth win in their fifth group stage game in the final quarter of an hour. Deep into stoppage time, the former Dortmund player laid the ball off for Joselu, who scored the all-important 4:2.
"It's not easy at all to compare players from different generations," said Ancelotti after the game when asked about the two stars with the number 5. Only to then do it anyway. Ancelotti is a polite man: "I see how Bellingham always manages to be dangerous in the penalty area. Zidane couldn't do that. But perhaps he had an individual quality that Bellingham doesn't have. That's modern soccer. It requires physically strong players like Bellingham, who can cover large parts of the pitch quickly."
What Bellingham still needs to learn
Once he started raving, nothing could stop the 64-year-old Italian. Bellingham, he said, was "a gift for soccer". One that makes his coach, his team-mates and, of course, the club's fans happy every day. "Everyone is just delighted to see a player with so much potential and such a positive image."
But Ancelotti does have one criticism. "Nobody could have imagined how quickly he would be able to adapt to our style of play and the club," said the Italian: "Bellingham is a young, focused professional. He has arrived well with us. But he needs to improve his Spanish. I keep saying it: nobody is perfect."
The young Englishman already failed to achieve linguistic perfection in Dortmund. The Englishman ignored the German language whenever possible. In the former beer capital of the world, however, he was only passing through; he landed in Madrid to stay and follow in Zidane's footsteps. So far, he is doing a formidable job.
Carlo Ancelotti has highlighted Jude Bellingham's impressive performance in the Champions League, comparing him to Real Madrid legend Zinédine Zidane, stating, "Zidane couldn't do that" in terms of Bellingham's ability to be dangerous in the penalty area. Furthermore, in the wake of Real Madrid's win against SSC Napoli, Ancelotti continues to praise Bellingham's contributions to the team, suggesting that the English midfielder is still improving his Spanish language skills.
Source: www.ntv.de
