Featured Image Credit: X/@BellinghamTime
Topics: Real Madrid, La Liga, Jude Bellingham, Spain
Jack Kenmare
Topics: Real Madrid, La Liga, Jude Bellingham, Spain
An emotional Jude Bellingham was reunited with his dad at the Golden Boy awards in Turin this week – and the heartwarming moment was captured on camera.
Bellingham was handed the 2023 Golden Boy Award for Europe's best under-21 player on Monday after receiving a record-breaking 485 out of 500 points from a panel of 50 journalists.
The 20-year-old midfielder, who has scored 15 goals in his opening 16 games for Real Madrid since his summer move from Borussia Dortmund, is the first Los Blancos player in history to win the award.
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After beating the likes of Jamal Musiala and Alejandro Balde to the coveted prize, Bellingham said: "I’m proud to win the Golden Boy Award. My secret is the responsibility since I was a kid in the academy. I love that."
Bellingham has also credited his family as one of the main reasons behind his success. And after the ceremony on Monday night, he was reunited with his dad, Mark.
Mark Bellingham, who was somewhat of a football journeyman after appearing for over 20 clubs, currently lives in Sunderland, where youngest son Jobe plays his football.
Denise Bellingham, meanwhile, is based in Madrid alongside the Los Blancos midfielder.
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Jude shares an incredibly close relationship with his father. "We talk about footballing heroes, and my dad was like my first," he told the FA website in 2021.
"When you go and watch him play every week in non-League, you know it's not the Premier League or anything, but seeing the way that he played and the atmosphere, it made me fall in love with football so he was probably my first hero.
"After the first few times of going, I’d start to pay a bit more attention to the games and stuff, the atmosphere and he's scoring goals so you see him celebrating and stuff like that - you want that to be me.
"Growing up, he'd always give me tips on what I could do and now it gets to a certain age and it sort of flips and that's brilliant because we have that sort of relationship like father and son and then as I got older, like coach and player."
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Jude also opened up about his mum's influence while on international duty with England.
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"The role my mum is playing is massive," he said. "I think at the minute it is probably the biggest role of anyone, even probably more than my coaches and managers, to be honest."