Controversial Birmingham City call involving Jude Bellingham makes perfect sense now: View | OneFootball

Real Madrid and England superstar Jude Bellingham is an academy product of Championship side Birmingham City, and made his first team debut for the Blues in an EFL Cup clash with Portsmouth in August 2019 as the club's youngest ever senior player, aged just 16 years and 38 days old.

Bellingham spent just one season with the Blues at first team level, before signing for Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund ahead of the 2020/21 season for a fee of £25m.

The former Champions League winners recognised the starlet's talent after he made 41 Championship appearances for the Midlands outfit, scoring four goals and creating two assists in the process.

Bellingham's boyhood club made the decision to retire the youngster's shirt number, 22, following his move to Germany, which was a controversial move at the time.

The act of retiring shirt numbers is somewhat of a rarity in English football, and given that the ace had only spent one season at St Andrew's, the Blues had seemingly made a bizarre choice.

Controversial Bellingham decision is proving right

When the Blues retired the then 17-year-old's shirt number, it seemed like a premature decision, but the midfielder went on to be a highly influential figure for Dortmund.

The England international was a mainstay in the Dortmund side across all three of his seasons at Signal Iduna Park, while his most productive season in yellow and black came in the 2022/23 season, as he scored 14 goals and produced six assists in 42 games across all competitions, with eight goals in the Bundesliga, two in the DFB Pokal and four in the Champions League.

Bellingham was rewarded for his positive start to the 2022/23 campaign, as Gareth Southgate named him in his England squad for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

The midfielder would repay the faith the Three Lions boss had instilled in him, as he scored the opener in England's emphatic 6-2 win over Iran in their first game of the tournament.

He would then go on to make a World Cup assist in the Three Lions' knock-out clash with Senegal, as he set up Jordan Henderson's opening goal as England won 3-0 in the round of 16.

In the summer of 2023, Bellingham signed for 35-time La Liga champions Real Madrid for a reported initial fee of £88.5m, while add-on fees could make the star worth £115m, which would be a new record for a British player.

Since his first step into senior football with Birmingham back in 2019, Bellingham has clearly shown that he is a footballer with special talents.

But prior to his move to the Spanish capital, the most goals he ever scored in a single campaign was the 14 he scored for Dortmund across all competitions last season.

The midfield sensation bettered this tally in La Liga alone by 10th February 2024, as he scored a brace to help Madrid defeat fellow top four side Girona 4-0, scoring his 15th and 16th goals of the league season.

The Galacticos have deployed Bellingham in a more attacking role than he was used to at Dortmund or with the Blues, and it is paying dividends as he is a 20-year-old star who has the world at his feet.