ToastedCupboard

Jude Bellingham has taken Real Madrid and World Football by a storm right now!

He's gathered 15 goals + 4 assists in just 16 games for Real Madrid breaking the records of Puskas, Di Stefano and Ronaldo himself. All of this while just recently turning 20 years old, with his entire career ahead of him.

What he's doing is unheard of, perhaps only Ronaldo Fenomenon himself had a better start to the season than him as a 20 years old.

The differentiator however is his impact in the game, he's truly bossing the free role at Madrid contrubuting in goals, assists, key passes, dribbles, crosses, headers, flicks, finishing, playmaking, 1-2 passing, off ball movements, interceptions, tackles, positioning, strength, dominating, work rate and even leadership.. There is truly nothing that this boy can't do!

I genuinely cannot point a single weakness in his game right now, he's top of the charts for almost all attributes since the start of the season. So these achievements so far in the season brings the question, What is his ceiling as a footballer provided he continues this streak? Generational? All-Timer? GOAT candidate?

Premier League has more than 8 teams with higher NET spend than Real Madrid in the last 10 years and yet their teams need 2-3 rebuilds every few years..

Why don't they buy the best upcoming young talents as Madrid does:

• Vinicius (23)
• Bellingham (20)
• Rodrygo (23)
• Endrick (17) - 2024
• Guler (18)
• Valverde (25)
• Tchouameni (23)
• Camavinga (20)
• Militao (25)
• Davies (23) - 2024?

All of these players are bought when they were U-23 and only 1 (Jude) of them costed 100M+ while other 80M (Tchouameni).

What stops the other richer PL clubs to follow the same policy and buy the Cherki, Redondo, Wirtz, Santiago, and other young gems who are actually quality instead of wasting their money on overpriced deals (Mount, Casemiro, Havertz, Caicedo, Cucurella, Sterling, Mudryk, Antony, Nunez, etc) leading them to rebuild after rebuild for years..

I feel that all of Liverpool/United/Chelsea/Spurs/Arsenal goes for higher floor but lower ceiling in terms of their quality and potential while Madrid has a priority for highest ceiling ones..

Its like the saying, 'Shoot for the moon and you will land alongside stars'. Its more profitable and sustainable in long term if you buy absolute worldbeater wonderkid than just a 'good' and 'stable' buys like McAllister, Gakpo, Mount, and others.

It simply limits your capability and thats a disaster especially when you are competing against Madrid, Bayern, City likes in domestic and continental competitions who are very much up for lining up dynasty level squads.

Imagine a hypothetical CL semi-final game between two sides comprised of these players:

La Liga Star XI: Casillas, Alves, Puyol, Ramos, Carlos, Zidane, Iniesta, Xavi, Ronaldo, Suarez and Messi.

Bench: Koeman, Marcelo, Modric, Kroos, Busquets, Neymar, Bale, Benzema, R9.

VS

Premier League Star XI: Cech, Walker, Terry, Ferdinand, Cole, Gerrard, Lampard, De Bruyne, Henry, Shearer, Salah.

Bench: Schmeichel, Van Dijk, Vidic, Neville, Scholes, Viera, Rooney, Hazard, Van Persie.

Imagine first leg being at Anfield and the second leg at Santiago Bernabeu. What would be the aggregate scoreline?

I genuinely cannot think of any midfielder in football history who was as good as him.

He's the best player in the world at 20 years old with 13 goals and 3 assists playing as a midfielder for the biggest and most pressure club in the world with an incomplete squad at his disposal.

Its not even about goals but their importance, he's winning games, equalizing scores all by himself and many times at the very last minute.

Considering his young age (20) and if he were to improve further on passing and tempo dictation, does he have a chance to go down as the most complete midfielder of all-time? (Matthaus probably holds that spot)