“The Real Madrid coach continues to praise you publicly, says that you are unique, special — he even compared you to Kaka…”
“True, but I know that I’m disappointing him in one aspect…”
“How?”
“I just don’t speak Spanish yet… I’m sorry, but I’m encountering unexpected obstacles with this language. It’s hard for me, I admit. In any case, I promise maximum commitment, guaranteed.”
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That was how Jude Bellingham described his struggles to Italian publication Tuttosport before he received the Golden Boy trophy for Europe’s best under-21 player this week. It is the only problem the 20-year-old Englishman has faced since he arrived in Madrid this summer, having scored 15 goals in his first 17 games.
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At any other club, Bellingham’s words would not make sense given his spectacular start. But at Real Madrid, players are held to higher standards by fans and the media, particularly when it comes to speaking Spanish. Bellingham will be keenly aware of the example of fellow British players Gareth Bale and David Beckham, whose lack of communication worked against them at the Bernabeu.
“My biggest piece of advice: play the game at Real Madrid,” Bale warned Bellingham last month. “Because if you don’t play and you don’t do what the press wants, talk to them (in Spanish) — basically, be a puppet — you’re going to get a lot of stick.”
Bale and Beckham appeared to speak limited Spanish during their time in the capital and rarely gave interviews in the language. When they did, they were often unable to string two sentences together. Beckham admitted he was still having trouble with Spanish before starting his second season at the club, while Bale has said he knew more than he let on.
Beckham found learning Spanish difficult (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)“I could speak Spanish but I wouldn’t want to because I just wanted to keep everything private and quiet and not have this big fuss around me,” the former Wales winger told The Times this year. “Maybe that’s why they attacked me because I never really give a lot. They probably just didn’t understand me as a person.”
Madrid offer all new signings the opportunity to take Spanish classes. Club sources, who asked to remain anonymous as they did not have permission to comment, say Bellingham has been taking Spanish classes at home and at Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex since he arrived from Borussia Dortmund. Bellingham also installed an application on his phone for learning.
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“It’s much easier than trying to learn German,” he told the news agency PA after the move in July. “I studied Spanish at school up to the ninth grade and, in retrospect, I would have kept studying it.”
Others have gone their own way. David Alaba started learning Spanish with the private language school 3Phase Lingua Group in August 2021 after he arrived from Bayern Munich on a free transfer. The group taught former Madrid stars Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira and also counts Alaba’s defensive partner Antonio Rudiger among its former clients.
According to Alwin Anwander, the founder of 3Phase Lingua Group, many players find it difficult to learn Spanish due to a lack of motivation.
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“Sometimes the teachers the clubs pass on to the players don’t do well because they use a very traditional method and it’s boring for them — it happened with Rudiger when he was at Roma,” Anwander says.
“But many players don’t even want to learn the language. In the case of Real Madrid, there were players who before leaving had not learned anything because they had zero interest. Many times, it is not easy.
“The player has to work, put in a good performance (on the pitch) and show that he was worth the money they (the club) paid. The language is secondary, the club don’t demand it — the player decides. If he performs, I don’t see it as such a big problem. They (the club) don’t put pressure on them; it’s more the media, the fans. The players themselves realise that.”
Ozil and Khedira struggled with Spanish when they first arrived from Germany after the 2010 World Cup and head coach Jose Mourinho did not help when he said he had difficulty transmitting his instructions to them. “The life of the two Germans is not easy: they don’t speak Spanish and their relationship with the group is zero,” Mourinho told sports the newspaper AS in 2010.
Ozil, left, and Khedira were called out for not speaking Spanish (Ander Gillenea/AFP/GettyImages)“They were the first to arrive from Germany at Real Madrid in a long time,” Anwander says. “At that time, the club didn’t ask them (to learn the language), it depends on each student. Mesut took much longer than Sami.
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“Sami had more focus and interest in learning. Mesut had less enthusiasm, he was (doing it) more for his father. For Sami, it was more about him. He started from the beginning.”
Bellingham is not short of enthusiasm. He regularly uses Spanish on social media platforms and has endeared himself to reporters by trying with them too. When he announced he would be fit to start in El Clasico in an interview with broadcaster RTVE in October, he did so in Spanish while reading from a piece of paper — although he appeared to mispronounce “estare” (“I will be”).
He conducts interviews with Real Madrid TV in English but has developed a good relationship with their reporter, Victorio Calero, and signs off with “Adiooos amigo”.
👋HEY JUDE
🎙Bellingham estará en el @telediario_tve, su primera entrevista en España
🗣Y manda un mensaje al madridismo: "Estaré en el clásico"
🎥@andress_rm https://t.co/y5ibN9FuEI pic.twitter.com/h25N8bqTOI
— Teledeporte (@teledeporte) October 26, 2023
Anwander says many players find Spanish more difficult given conjugating verbs is easier in English. He also points out that the Spanish version of “you” has a singular and a plural version which confuses some learners, and that German speakers have an advantage when learning Spanish given the nature of verb conjugation in their language.
And while players face harsh criticism from the media when they are not open in speaking the language, some have succeeded in Spain just by making an effort. Bellingham need only look at the example of the late Michael Robinson, the former Liverpool and Brighton & Hove Albion striker who moved to Spain with Osasuna in 1987 and became a cult hero as a broadcaster with his distinctive and accomplished Spanish — so much so that he hosted a TV programme called “Acento Robinson”.
As long as Bellingham continues to show “maximum commitment, ” he can expect to keep feeling the love from Madrid fans.
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(Top photo: Alberto Gardin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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