Jude Bellingham is preparing to head out for his first World Cup experience with England. While there was all the talk of whether or not James Maddison would make it into the squad, there was never any doubt about the Borussia Dortmund star’s inclusion - and fans are excited to see him flaunt his talent on the biggest stage of them all.
The midfielder has had a meteoric rise to stardom ever since he seamlessly transitioned into the Birmingham City first team from the academy as a 16-year-old, going on to become the Bundesliga and Champions League star who is expected to shine in Qatar.
There are so many factors that contribute to forging a star in football, and the biggest of all that is often overlooked is the amount of time and work invested by academy coaches.
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Mike Dodds, now a first-team coach at Sunderland, played a key role in Bellingham’s development during his Birmingham academy years. And, as he tells The Sportsman, Jude wasn't immediately tagged for super-stardom.
“He was obviously a talented boy. I'm not going to play down the fact that he had a talent, but most boys who come into those pre-academy programmes have a level of talent. I wouldn't say he was a standout and that he came in and everyone was like ‘wow!’" Dodds explains.
“He came in at Under-7s and had a real kind of infectious enthusiasm, like most kids do at that age. He ran around, loved scoring goals. He was good but I wouldn't say he was any different to the Under-7 boys who came in at that time.”
Bellingham started to work closely with Dodds again when he started featuring in the Under-11s, and Mike thought that the youngster needed to be tested.
“I remember watching him and felt he had to play with the older boys to provide the appropriate stretch and challenge for him.
“We had lots of resistance from some of the coaches who obviously didn't feel it was appropriate. I'm not saying playing in a higher age group is the only way for challenging footballers, there's loads of different ways of challenging them. But we just felt it was appropriate in terms of we felt the games were coming a little bit too easy for him.
“We eventually moved him up an age group and I worked with him probably then all the way through until he broke into the first team. I was probably using a consistent programme [with him] for the best part of four or five years.”
When asked whether there were any signs of him evolving into a world-class player in the youth teams, Dodds says he felt there weren’t any clear markers to predict the player we see now but acknowledges that working closely with him may not have given him the clearest picture.
“I don't know whether you get caught up in your own little bubble and you don't really realise how good he was because you were working with him more or less every day. But in hindsight when he got called up to England at an age group above, which would normally be a marker where people go ‘he's very good’ but we never really got carried away with that.
“He was always playing up an age group and doing reasonably well. And I think sometimes we forgot that he was a year younger than most of the boys he was playing against. I think at the back end of his schoolboy programme you would probably start to say 'this boy's good', but even then you couldn't have predicted what he's gone on and done, no chance.”
The 36-year-old admits that it was after Bellingham had played several games in the first team at Birmingham that his true potential became more evident.
“Because I wasn't directly involved at that point and I wasn't in the eye of the storm, you're sitting back and you're watching, it's at that point when I went 'actually, he's not bad'.
Dodds was always impressed with Bellingham’s determination to improve his game and believes that he was a rather unique case for academy players in how he processed the information he was given.
“He's very different to a lot of boys in terms of his drive, and his desire to be the best at everything he turns his hand to. So if he wasn't the best at something, I won't say he acted up because he's not that type of kid, but he would behave in a different way.”
The one thing that Dodds doesn’t like when it comes to Bellingham is the label ‘generational talent’.
“It irritates me. It almost gets branded like Jude would've come through any academy programme,” Dodds says. “And I know people will have really strong opinions on that, but I completely disagree. I think there was almost like a perfect fit in terms of his personality and the way the Birmingham City programme ran.
“It was almost like the perfect storm in terms of what the family wanted, what Jude wanted and how the football club saw their academy programme run. He's clearly got a talent, I'm not denying that. But the environment that was created allowed that talent to really flourish.
“And I think Jude would be the first person to admit there was lots of work that went into it, whether it would be session design, or conversations, or maybe falling out with him, or putting an arm around him, I think that's where the proper developer will harness their skill set.”
During his professional career Bellingham has become synonymous with the number 22. The number he now wears for Dortmund was actually reserved by the Blues upon him leaving the club, and now he is going to wear his iconic 22 for the Three Lions at the World Cup. The number is very special to Jude, and Dodds was the architect behind it.
“He would have been playing with the Under-13s, called up an age group early, and I remember driving in to have a meeting with him. And I just don't know where I came up with the idea, I was thinking when it comes to special players you can't go into any conversation or any session plan by doing things off the cuff.
“I remember wondering what position he saw himself as, because for Birmingham he could almost play in all the positions because the level at times was too easy for him. But going to England youth camps, where does he see himself then compared to some of the best in the country?
“And I thought about how he can play in all positions, and then I just came up with the idea of adding the numbers together. I'm a little bit old school and I call the holding midfielder a four. I sat down with him, and then I just said ‘Look, I think you can be at 22.’
“He was like 'a what?' I said ‘I think you can be a 22’. So we had the conversation around the role and responsibility of an eight, the role and responsibility of a four, and the role and responsibility for a 10.
“And I knew at that point, I had really hooked him, I could see it in his body language. From then on in, from probably the under-13s, everything we talked about was being a 22 and he just completely bought into it.
“It was literally something I thought about in the car. I knew having the conversation with him, I kind of pitched it to him around designing his programme around being a 22, and that's what his programme basically became for the best part of five or six years.”
Dodds believes that Bellingham made the right decision in choosing Dortmund to further his evolution on the pitch when it became apparent that he was leaving St Andrew’s.
“I think one thing Jude has always done, he's been very calculated in terms of every decision he's made. That was never a decision that was made in five minutes. It wouldn't have been a decision about money - no chance. I'm sure he would have got more lucrative offers, probably staying in England. His decision was purely about football.
“Some people at the time might have seen it as a little bit of a gamble, you know, coming out of Covid, moving to a different country, not by himself but at such a young age. But as I said, it was a very calculated decision and the proof is in the pudding in terms of him having played countless Champions League games, scoring in the Champions League. He's now in the England squad going to the World Cup and, touch wood, playing. He made the right decision.”
In just six days' time, Dodds is likely to see the young man he spent many years working with take to the field with England at a World Cup.
“I find it really surreal, I still find it surreal. And just because when I speak to him, he's still the same boy that left England three years ago, he's finally more mature. I say slightly more mature, it's ever so slightly [because he was always mature]. But we just have a really good connection away from football. I think that helps, the fact that I've probably got the mental age of a teenager as well! So I talk to him regularly, we talk about normal life stuff, and we're normally taking the mickey out of each other.
“I'd be an idiot if I said I wasn't immensely proud of him. He still takes an interest in me, I was on the first-team staff [at Sunderland] that won the play-off final in League One last summer. And he was the first one who said to me ‘I want to come to the game, I'm in England, can you get me a ticket?’ and just little things like that mean the world to me.
“I keep forgetting he's still only 19. I will feel old in June when he turns 20, because he's no longer a teenager. So that will make me feel really, really old.”
Dodds knows that Gareth Southgate has some talented midfielders to choose from but he believes none of them are as versatile as Bellingham.
“He gives you a different dimension to the other midfielders. He's quite unique because he can play multiple roles. I don't think he'll play higher based on the fact that there are so many options that England have, but it depends on the shape that he wants to play.
“The last couple of games he's played with Declan Rice, and that seems to be a good balance. I'm not going to discount any other England midfielders but I think, given the season he's had up to this point with Dortmund, he starts in the first game for me. And if you're asking me, of course I'm going to be biased, and so I'm going to play him.”
