Jude Bellingham was not shocked by Madrid’s display after a campaign littered with defeats and tactical muddle
On the way out of the Emirates, someone asked Kylian Mbappé whether Real Madrid could still do this. “Course we can,” he replied, three words and then he was gone. In front of him, Vinícius Júnior left in silence. Rodrygo passed by unnoticed again. Luka Modric didn’t talk, nor did Fede Valverde. Lucas Vázquez and Raúl Asencio did, then Thibaut Courtois and Jude Bellingham. “We weren’t good,” Vázquez admitted. “We forgot to play well,” Courtois said. “It’s not what what we expected,” Asencio said, but it wasn’t unexpected either, which is why it was the description Bellingham didn’t use which said it best.
Asked whether he was shocked, Bellingham said: “I don’t know if ‘shocked’ is the right word.” No one who has watched them all year could have truly been shocked by this, except that they’re Real Madrid, stupid, and somehow Real Madrid always seem to find a way. “There is nothing we can draw from external excuses or anything like that; we have to look at ourselves,” Bellingham said. “These are similar sets of themes to when we have dropped points all season. It’s happened again tonight on a larger scale.”
