JUDE BELLINGHAM is sum expertise – and it was all discovered years in the past.
Birmingham Metropolis head of academy Mike Dodds revealed the England star, 19, sticks to sporting No22 after he was awarded it as a child to indicate he “can do all of it” – as a No 4, 8 or 10.
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Three into one helluva participant.
Midfielder Bellingham is already a Borussia Dortmund common and now a World Cup goalscorer, after opening the lead towards Iran in Qatar.
That progress absolutely vindicates his choice to snub Manchester United for a £25million transfer from Championship strugglers Brum to the Bundesliga in 2020.
Dodds says Bellingham went from “not too unhealthy” to an excellent prospect six years later aged 13 – all including as much as a brand new shirt quantity.
The Brum coach informed talkSPORT 2: “I truly keep in mind his first session as a seven-year-old.
“I believed, ‘Yeah he’s alright, not too unhealthy’. He didn’t stand out. It most likely wasn’t till he obtained to 13 the place you began to go, ‘This boy is excellent.’
“He would have been about 13 or 14 and like most boys that age, they wish to be a No 10.
“And I keep in mind, we sat down with him and we mentioned, ‘we expect you’re doing your self a disservice, we expect you are able to do all of it.
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“So we got here up with, ‘we expect you is usually a 22′.
“His eyes lit up and we knew had hooked him from then on in!
“We mentioned we thought he may very well be a holding midfielder, or a 4. We thought he may very well be a box-to-box, which is an eight. And we thought he may very well be a scorer and a creator, so a ten.
“And from the age of 13 onwards he has held on to that during and you may see that in his sport.
“He made his debut at Birmingham Metropolis and he mentioned, ‘I need my squad quantity to be quantity 22’ and mentioned the identical factor at Dortmund.”
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