Football journalist and author Guillem Balagué provides his expert insight regarding the England futures of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jude Bellingham.
Let me start with an image: Trent and Jude walking into the Real Madrid dressing room for the first time, carrying with them something that started long before getting to Spain.
As youngsters, they were in love with Spanish football.
They watched Revista de La Liga on Sky. They would throw themselves onto the sofa and no one dared change the channel when the first Spanish guitar chords of the programme began.
Bellingham showed it in his documentary: he and his brother glued to the screen, following new signings, highlights, personalities. That league, that club, lived in their imagination long before it became reality.
Knowing what I do about their personalities, and having spoken to both of them on several occasions, I can picture their arrivals very differently.
Bellingham walks into the Real Madrid changing room for the first time upright, smiling, greeting everyone, introducing himself — “I’m Jude” — with the same authority with which he demands the ball on the pitch.
That is why his adaptation at Real Madrid required so little time. He had already lived it in his head countless times.
Trent is different. On the pitch he can appear bold, even daring, but in new environments he can be shy. He would enter the dressing room with his head slightly down, waiting to be introduced rather than imposing himself.
He too had imagined the Bernabéu, but his adaptation is more complex. It depends not only on expressing his strengths, but also on the team understanding how to use him. And that is still a work in progress.
Much of the analysis around Trent is misguided: he is being looked at through the wrong lens.
Alexander-Arnold possesses qualities on the ball that clearly distinguish him from almost any midfielder, not just defenders. He might have shown defensive weaknesses, often exposed further at Liverpool and Real Madrid as they are highly offensive and sometimes neglect the protection of their full-backs. But none of this is new. Jürgen Klopp solved this puzzle years ago at Liverpool by building a system that maximised his strengths rather than focusing on his flaws.
From early on, under Klopp, Trent interpreted the role of full-back in a radically different way. While others in that position prioritised defensive stability, physical endurance and overlapping runs, the player sought the ball at the start of moves, attempted risky vertical passes, operating frequently in central areas.
The last time I saw him, after a superb UEFA Champions League performance against Manchester City in Madrid, I told him: “You don’t need a Kroos. You can organise the attack from the flank, even by drifting inside.” He laughed. But there was more truth than a joke in that comment.
Those qualities make him almost tailor-made for a team like Real Madrid. A player capable of structuring and also accelerating play from deeper positions is of enormous strategic value. Trent is a playmaker. His diagonal long balls, delicate chipped passes behind the defence or sharp vertical switches create opportunities.
In fact, he offers something none of Madrid’s midfielders consistently provide: the ability to control, calm or speed up attacking play with precision. While many teams rely on creativity from traditional central or wide positions, he offers a different idea: he can do it from different lines of attack, and when he delivers from deeper zones is particularly valuable against compact defensive blocks.
That becomes especially potent when combined with players like Jude Bellingham, who thrives on early attacks and arriving into spaces behind the defence. It also connects naturally with the pace and clever runs of Vinícius or Kylian Mbappé.
Under Klopp, the clever use of Trent required Liverpool often shifting into a back three during build-up. This allowed him to operate centrally, alongside or ahead of the holding midfielder, controlling the game without exposing him. It was not about hiding weaknesses, but about amplifying his strengths.
Real Madrid are not fully there yet structurally, but the direction is clear. Arbeloa wants him to be key for the team with all that he offers as it would be negligent to ignore what Trent uniquely offers. That goes for England too. So it is surprising and disappointing that he is not an essential part of the national team already, and a failure of coaching if a solution is not found with him in the team.
Jude Bellingham offers a thousand solutions — and one very real problem — for both England and Real Madrid.
In what was meant as a compliment, Álvaro Arbeloa admitted as much after the derby victory against Atletico Madrid, a game that extended Madrid’s winning streak to five, achieved without Mbappé or Bellingham in the line up. Now both must be reintegrated. Mbappé is the easy part, as it will leave Brahim on the bench. But Jude is different.
“The problem with Bellingham is that he’s very good at many things,” Arbeloa said. “He’s excellent close to the box, but also deeper, where play is built. He can carry the ball and break lines. When you’re that good at so many things, you have to choose what’s best for the team — and that can depend on the match.” His conclusion was revealing: it is not just about finding Bellingham’s position, but about surrounding him with the right players, the right chemistry, the right structure to maximise his qualities.
This debate is not confined to Madrid. It extends to England, where Thomas Tuchel has been clear: for him, Bellingham is a number 10, same as Cole Palmer, Foden, and Morgan Rogers. Paradoxically, England have looked stable without him.
Back in Madrid, Ancelotti thought Madrid had signed a midfielder and discovered a forward. In fact, he saw it very clearly early on, and told Jude what he required of him: to get into the box as often as he could. Two magnificent seasons, mostly the first one, took place. This campaign has been a rollercoaster. Xabi Alonso initially wanted to use him as a midfielder. Yet he played as a ten for his first start at the Metropolitano against Atletico Madrid, a disastrous defeat.
In late October, Bellingham, physically limited as he has admitted recently, scored in three consecutive matches — Juventus, Barcelona, Valencia. But his numbers this season — six goals and four assists in 31 appearances — fall well short of his extraordinary output before.
For me, his greatest strength is not as a midfielder, but as an attacker — a runner, arriving into the box with perfect timing.
As his impact was enormous at the start of his career at the Bernabeu, he has tried to do everything since. His talent and personality compel him to be involved in a lot, regardless of whether the structure around him truly benefits from it.
Sometimes, limitation brings improvement. The best version of Neymar came when his role was clearly defined on the left, particularly under Luis Enrique at Barcelona. Gareth Southgate, I suspect, wanted something similar with Bellingham — to reduce his influence in order to improve both the player and the team — but never quite found that balance.
With Jude, less can be more.
At Valdebebas, the coaching staff are working from a clear premise: the most useful Bellingham is not the one who shines the brightest individually, but the one who elevates everyone else. When he feels the need to be everywhere, he risks ending up nowhere. That is the real challenge — for Arbeloa and for Tuchel. Placing Bellingham is about building a structure that makes his talent shine, and the player accepting it.
