No-one quite knew what workout Jude Bellingham was doing. He was sort of maybe jumping. There was a kettlebell in his hands. But he was also wearing football boots, and had resistance bands worked into the mix. It looked like three drills at once, a strange combination of activities. Still, whatever it was, it's working.
Bellingham has been in a tricky spot of late. There is growing noise in England that Morgan Rogers – not him – should be Thomas Tuchel's go-to attacking midfielder going forward. Madrid also didn't seem to particularly miss him as he recovered from shoulder surgery. Xabi Alonso, for the most part, has Los Blancos humming early on.
But this is Jude Bellingham, a truly excellent footballer who can, quite clearly, be a difference-maker for any side at any level. It has been an odd few months for him. His form dropped drastically at the end of the 2024-25 campaign, and Madrid went trophyless. A much-delayed shoulder surgery stopped any sort of early season revival before it could even start. And now, he finds himself in between.
There have been some promising signs. He scored in his first Champions League start of the season, and has found a rhythm in Alonso's midfield. But El Clasico, on Sunday, seems to be something of an inflection point; is this the game where we will see the Bellingham of old? Or is this where worries begin to mount as the season wears on?
Getty Images SportA tricky end to 2025
It is no secret that madrid were struggling in the final days of Carlo Ancelotti's reign. The great Italian tactician had, basically, run out of ideas as to how to get his side to tick. It was looking increasingly like Kylian Mbappe was a high-wages mistake, and with Vinicius Jr also misfiring, Ancelotti basically resorted to a 4-4-2, asking two speedy forwards to play up front with Bellingham just tucked in behind.
And whether it be due to individual effort or poor setups, Bellingham could never quite make it work. He still scored and assisted here and there, but his general play was lacking. He missed tackles, was loose in his passing, and sometimes simply gave up on plays. One particularly poor moment in the Clasico – in which Bellingham was dispossessed, complained to the referee, and watched his man saunter to the other end of the field and smack the ball home – summed things up. Bellingham was frustrated, emotional and far from his best.
To be clear, he is not to blame for Madrid's woes. It was a combination of factors, but Bellingham felt them the hardest. The criticism was perhaps a tad unfair. But Bellingham had been a Ballon d'Or candidate in his first season in Madrid. Make no mistake, this was a significant drop-off.
AdvertisementIMAGO / NurPhotoClub World Cup and surgery
Part of the problem was that Bellingham was playing hurt – and had been for over a year. He dislocated his shoulder twice during his first season at the Santiago Bernabeu, and played with heavy strapping for months. He couldn't get surgery in the summer of 2024 because he had a Euros to lose. After that, it seemed, Madrid had a perfect window. But they were, once again, reluctant to let their main man in midfield go under the knife.
So, he continued to play through it. May 2025 would have seemed an optimal window, too. But in an effort to try to win the Club World Cup, Madrid further delayed it, asking the midfielder to play through a hot American summer with a shoulder that was still giving him discomfort.
To put it simply, Bellingham looked exhausted at the Club World Cup. He never really found any form, and as Alonso tinkered with his XI, Bellingham never quite settled. There was a lethargy to his play – and Madrid's in general. They were ultimately battered by Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-final, and there was perhaps an unspoken relief to it all: one less game to play, and a chance for Bellingham to reset.
Getty Images SportGuler and coping without Jude
And that should have set things up rather nicely. It became clear that the Englishman would miss pre-season and a couple months of the new campaign. But even that might only have highlighted just how important he was to Alonso's project. Presumably, Madrid would soon learn how much they needed him.
Except they didn't.
Alonso made Arda Guler the centrepiece of his side at the Club World Cup, and hailed the young Turk as a potential cornerstone going forward. He suggested that Guler could play pretty much anywhere – right wing, No.10, even as a deep-lying playmaker. And he was rewarded with a string of fine performances from the 'Turkish Messi', who has undisputedly been one of the best players in La Liga this season.
"He gives great meaning to the game. When he's involved, we have a better team dynamic…I'm very happy with his progress, but we want more. He really enjoys playing football. He wants to find the pass, take the free-kick…[Florian] Wirtz was like that at Leverkusen. He's young, but he's a great player," Alonso said earlier this week.
Guler has backed it up with production, too, tallying 11 goal contributions to date.
Getty ImagesRecent returns
There were some fair questions to be asked, then, as to whether Guler and Bellingham could play together. Alonso has been tactically flexible in his early days, but neither Bellingham nor Guler is a true No.8. One of them had to suffer, in some way. However, Alonso rubbished that notion, and insisted that he would be able fit both of them into the side.
"We have to see how we position the other pieces. We need a balance, where we need to connect in those areas as best as possible. For me, how to get to Bellingham is always very important, how to get to the No.10 position. Arda Guler has been able to play No.10 and a little deeper, maybe not so much in the league now, but he can do it. They have to find their feet; they have to flow and feel comfortable. They can do it. I've seen them do it together, and I'm sure they'll do it again," he said in early October.
And so it has proved. Bellingham and Guler aren't exactly humming, but they have worked in some ways. They started together against Juventus, and were effective in an attacking sense. Bellingham scored the only goal, and Guler created seven chances. The flip side, of course, was that Madrid were vulnerable defensively, with neither player filling the necessary holes in the middle – and leaving Los Blancos exposed on the break. Better sides would have punished them.