Sir Alex Ferguson was there. Bryan Robson was there. Eric Cantona was there. The manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær was there, and yet even as these four club legends sold the dream of Manchester United to a 17-year-old from the Midlands, they could sense the elusiveness, the coldness, the drop of the shoulder. The nagging suspicion that, like so many defenders Jude Bellingham would later encounter, they too were grasping at pure air.
“He had it planned out,” Solskjær would later remember. “He knew what he wanted. X amount of minutes in the first team. The most mature 17‑year‑old I’ve ever met in my life.” Though five years have passed since Bellingham turned down United for Borussia Dortmund, for me this is still the story that explains him best of all. The origin myth. This is what you all think I’m going to do. So I’m going to step that way instead.
And before we talk about Problem Jude, Petulant Jude, Selfish Jude, One Man World Cup Wrecking Ball Jude, let’s first discuss Jude the way he deserves to be discussed. Jude, the artist. Jude, the apostate. Jude, the obsessive student of the game who quotes Theodore Roosevelt after a big tournament win.
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