Jude Bellingham equals Mbappé and Haaland in Transfermarkt’s latest value update, while ‘The Guardian’ places him as the second best of 2023.
Jude Bellingham and Real Madrid have been a love affair. Love at first sight based on goals and leadership. Specifically, 17, accompanied by five assists. In just 21 games. Historic figures, Christianesque. The cement of a Madrid that closes 2023 at the top of everything. The leader of the leader. Of La Liga and the Champions League. An automatic fit, positional mutation by means of, that has skyrocketed his price. The conversations for the Ballon d’Or will not take long to appear, but he is already reaping rewards that demonstrate his ‘galactic’ consideration. In fact, Transfermarkt, in its latest value update, places him at the top. The Stourbridge man has reached the summit and equals Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland as the highest valued players on the planet, with 180 million euros.
It is Jude’s second rise on the specialist site since his move to Madrid. In June, when he left Dortmund as Bundesliga MVP and left €100m in the Signal Iduna Park coffers, Bellingham was valued at €120m. In October, after his flying start, his valuation stood at €150m and now, in just six months as a Real Madrid player, he is touching the ceiling at €180m. A growth of €60m in half a year, a 50% increase. Almost nothing. Although with the performance shown, the collection of MVP’s and, although this does not compute for Transfermarkt, his anomalous maturity (“He is 20 years old and looks like he is 30″, acknowledged Ancelotti after winning in Naples thanks to a museum zigzag by the Englishman). If the collective performance matches the individual at the end of the season, the Ballon d’Or will begin to be verbalised in the present and not as a future possibility.
And after the podium, Vinicius. The Brazilian has kept the €150m he already had. Injuries have derailed his season and he has only been able to play 13 games (six goals and four assists). Just as he was beginning to show his best form, a setback, but Ancelotti is waiting for him with open arms in 2024. The curves are coming and Madrid will need the best Vini as Bellingham’s dance partner to aspire to everything.
Bellingham also shoots at home
In addition, Bellingham is also a prophet in his own land. If in 2022 The Guardian ranked him fourteenth among the 100 best footballers in the plan in its annual list, in 2023 Jude is a silver medalist, only behind Haaland and ahead of Mbappé, gold and bronze. Bellingham is rising through the ranks.
The British tabloid first published this ranking in 2012 and since then it has become a must-read at Christmas time. A panel of experts, made up of 218 judges including, in addition to renowned journalists, former players such as Philipp Lahm, Walter Casagrande, Aldair, Thomas Hitzslperger, Jan Åge Fjørtoft, Lucas Leiva, Lucio, Ramires and Fatih Terim voted the Manchester City cyborg number one by a wide margin (67.4%) and the only player in better form than the Real Madrid 5, who received 9.6% of the votes. Mbappé drops one place from last year, where the winner was a Messi who is now tenth, with Benzema third (down to 36th), Erling fourth and Luka Modric fifth. This year, the top five is completed by Harry Kane and Rodri.
The 14th edition of the competition was dominated by white, with four Madrid players in the top-10 (Vinicius, eighth; Courtois, ninth) and the first Orejona citizen has marked a change of dynamic (De Bruyne is eighth, Bernardo Silva eleventh…). Vinicius repeats in the noble zone and climbs positions, going from eighth to sixth. Meanwhile, Modric drops to 25th place, as the third player in Ancelotti’s squad. Fede Valverde (31st), Rodrygo (33rd), Courtois (39th), Camavinga (43rd), Kroos (70th), Alaba (81st), Tchouameni (86th) and Rüdiger (91st) are the others in The Guardian’s Top-100.
Griezmann (15), Gündogan (16), Lewandowski (17), Gavi (28), Pedri (32) or Ter Stegen (34) are the next illustrious LaLiga players to enter the scene. But it is Madrid who dominate the national list, with Bellingham as captain general. The Stourbridge man closes 2023 on the crest of the wave, running out of qualifiers. His scoring ceiling, until now, was the 14 goals he scored on his farewell to Dortmund. There he was the most promising midfielder on the planet, the box to box of the future. Now he is the top scorer in the league, he scored in his first four Champions League games and his football is in the absolute present.
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