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THere were some tourists from Madrid taking selfies outside the Allianz Arena on Monday lunchtime, and as football pilgrimages go, this is all you really need. Wedged between two major road junctions and approached via a concrete jungle of slip roads or a 40-minute scalp by train, followed by a long trudge past a sewage treatment plant, perhaps the best thing you can say about the location of Bayern Munich’s stadium is that it at least offers easy access elsewhere.
How often does it happen? Harry Kane Need to peer through black-out windows before this stadium feels like home? It would take years to master the language if he ever managed it. The Allianz doesn’t feel a part of Munich in the way that Madrid’s Estadio Bernabeu or Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium dominate the high road. And, of course, his name has already been made at the boyhood club, which still has a buy-back clause for him. No matter how long he’s been at Bayern, home will always be somewhere else on some level.
Jude Bellingham has only been at Real Madrid for 10 months. And yet it feels like 10 years. When he returns to Germany for the Champions League semi-finals, he will do so as one of the most iconic footballers on earth, as universally accepted as your favorite credit card. More than this: however, Bellingham, in his carriage and comportment, represents some intangible quality beyond anything on the football pitch, the same quality that Kane – for all his talent – does not represent.
Call it old school appeal, call it romance. Bellingham, so the popular myth goes, was the man who rejected the bright lights of petrostates For the timeless white of Real Madrid. Kane was a cynical trophy-chaser who moved to a guaranteed trophy club and somehow failed to win a trophy. It’s a story about timing and luck, how to forge a career in this most ruthless of businesses, the choices you make and when you make them. This is how a man with two permanent clubs in 20 years is seen as a calculating mercenary and a man with three clubs in four years is seen as the embodiment of old-school football romance.
Of course Birmingham – the city and the club – will never hold Bellingham for long. From a young age this extraordinary early midfielder had a clear eye on the direction he wanted to take his career. He visited Dortmund, studied their style, how young players developed, felt an immediate connection. “I wouldn’t play for a club I didn’t really fall in love with,” he says later.
Three years later the stakes were raised but the calculations remained largely the same. There was a new train leaving the station, but Bellingham would have to change tracks to catch it. Dortmund loved him and he loved him, but Madrid only called once. His England teammates twisted his ear in Qatar. Gareth Southgate tried to convince him to move to the Premier League. But off the pitch, Bellingham went wherever he wanted.
Meanwhile, in Kane’s world, horizons began to narrow. While Bellingham was adamant about moving on and moving up, Kane was equally adamant about where his career was headed. He wanted to taste glory with Tottenham. He wanted to develop and improve himself as a record-breaking, one-club Premier League titan.
It didn’t work. Exactly when this became clear to Kane is a matter of some conjecture. But by the way 2019 Champions League Final DefeatThe disintegration of Mauricio Pochettino’s regime, the contagion-fueled misery of Jose Mourinho, his public flirtation with Manchester City in 2021, the stagnation of the Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte years, something in his spirit seems essential.
In retrospect, his future was sealed in the summer of 2018, when he tied himself to a six-year contract shortly before winning the Golden Boot and becoming one of world football’s most popular properties. It was a romantic move. But the moment the doors begin to close, that’s when other futures begin to evaporate. Of course they can still thrive and compete and win. But those crucial wasted years between 26 and 30 are never wasted.
Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel was glowing and enthusiastic in his praise of the player on Monday. He described him as “extraordinary”, praising him as “brilliant here in the Bundesliga”, paying tribute to his “huge level of personality” and the way he handles “this club and all the expectations”. The player he was referring to was Bellingham. Asked how he would rate his own star striker in the relationship, Tuchel first failed to understand the question and then brusquely brushed it aside.
Clearly there are other reasons, footballing reasons, why these two great English players are perceived so differently. But there is also a lesson here about the importance of seizing an opportunity when it comes. Kane has navigated his career like a man who always has another season. Bellingham navigated his last game as a man. Will Bellingham ever allow his career to drift the way Kane did at Tottenham? Will he ever commit himself to a six-year deal at a club unwilling to sell his best players?
Perhaps that explains why one of these two players is on the cusp of everything and the other is nothing. Talent is not enough. Hard work is not enough. Desire is not enough. You just need some luck and some time. Because the future doesn’t wait.
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