Birmingham City’s Jude Bellingham is no more. The 17-year-old midfielder is now Borussia Dortmund’s Jude Bellingham having chosen a move from the West Midlands to the Westfalenstadion.
“I’m happy to announce that I will be joining Borussia Dortmund at the end of this season. I’m very excited about this next chapter of my journey at this great club and hope to achieve many successes in the future with my new teammates and for the amazing fans!” Bellingham wrote on Twitter after the move was announced.
Reportedly Bellingham, who joined Birmingham as an under-8, chose the Yellow and Blacks over moves to Manchester United, who had been clear in their desire to sign the teenager and had met with his parents earlier in the year, while European giants Bayern Munich, Ajax and Juventus joined English Premier League sides Arsenal and Chelsea in sending scouts to watch him in action.
Birmingham’s caretaker boss Steve Spooner announced the teen’s list of suitors to the media.
“I have never known anything like it,” Spooner told the British media. “It was very unique, but that is just testimony to the player that he is that so many clubs from around Europe came here to see him.”
Spooner was in charge of the teenage sensation during his time with the club’s under-18s before being in charge of him again in the first team as caretaker following Pep Clotet’s premature departure from the club with safety still not secured.
Before he moved, Bellingham still had the small matter of the final game of the Championship season with Birmingham City on Wednesday night.
“It’s unfortunate the fans won’t be there against Derby because he’d like to say goodbye to them,” said Spooner.
“But there are bigger issues than that going on in the world at the moment and Jude would be the first to recognize it.
“He is a blue through and through and this football club will always be special and dear to him wherever he goes.”
After only staying up on the final day in both of the last two seasons, Hong Kong-owned Blues were in similar trouble on Wednesday night, needing a win against Derby County at St Andrews to ensure another season in England’s second tier.
Bigger things ahead
Spooner sees bigger things ahead for the youngster he describes as a “really, really special boy,” possibly even next summer’s European Championships where the uncapped midfielder could join up with Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions, making the step up after representing England at under-15, under-16 and under-17 levels.
“It’s up to him, he can achieve whatever he wants,” Spooner said. “There will be no relaxing from him. He will have his own goals and he will be looking to tick them off.”
“Jude playing in a major tournament for England in a year, or 18 months’ time is a real possibility if he carries on.
“He has been playing some wonderful football and he has signed for a wonderful football club who are delighted to have beaten so many others to sign him.”
Blues caretaker boss has tracked Bellingham’s progress all the way.
“I first notice he was special around the under-11s age group, but every year we would read the reports about him. He just improved an accelerated and rose to the challenge every year,” Spooner said.
The biggest acceleration has been this season. He made his debut last August against Portsmouth at Fratton Park, aged 16 years and 38 days, in the Carabao Cup.
This beat the record set by club legend Trevor Francis when he made his first-team bow in September 1970 as a substitute against Cardiff City, aged 16 and 139 days.
Another of Francis’ records would fall weeks later. On August 31 – at 16 years and 63 days – he grabbed the winner to sink Stoke City, eclipsing Francis as the club’s youngest ever scorer. Francis scored four goals against Bolton for Birmingham as a 16-year-old in 1971.
Until Wednesday night, Bellinham had only scored four goals in total for Birmingham but his countless Man of the Match awards are more suggestive of a talent that has risen in stock – and stockiness – this season.
“Jude has, in the last year, his upper body has transformed but he always dominated the ball, technically. He is such an intelligent footballer, he works things out for himself without our help,” Spooner said.
It is expected that his move to Germany will work out for him, not least by Spooner. “I think it’s the right club for him and Jude has been so, so impressed with them.”
Less hope than expectation
There is plenty reason for it to be less hope than expectation. The Bundesliga side had Europe’s hottest rated teenager in Jadon Sancho, until the winger turned 20 in March to age himself out of that claim.
Not ones to lose their reputation he was usurped by his teammate Erling Braut Haaland, the Norwegian center forward who had arrived from Red Bull Salzburg in the January transfer window.
Haaland has followed Sancho in kicking on at Dortmund.
While Sancho has finished his final season as a teenager (and perhaps also his final season in Germany) with 20 goals and 20 assists across 44 games this campaign, Haaland has impressed in half the time.
He ended with 13 goals and three assists in 15 German Bundesliga games.
The Leeds-born striker has also been aged out of Europe’s best teenager, he turned 20 on Thursday, so the mantle has been passed to Belligham.
“This football club will greatly miss him, but it was impossible to keep such a talent. The c lub wouldn’t be able to do it and it wouldn’t be fair on the boy,” Spooner said.
“He’s been given his wings and now he’s got to go and fly. I fully expect him to carry on reaching that point at the very top of football.”
Jude Bellingham Photo: VCG
