Jude Bellingham's shirt number at Real Madrid revealed

Forum 10 months ago

Jude Bellingham's shirt number at Real Madrid revealed

Jude Bellingham will wear the number five jersey, previously worn by club legend Zinedine Zidane, at Real Madrid.

The England midfielder completed his move to Los Blancos from Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday, signing a six-year deal at the Santiago Bernabeu. The Spanish giants are believed to have forked out €103m plus add-ons for Bellingham's services after an impressive three-year spell at BVB.

Bellingham completed his medical at Real Madrid on Wednesday morning before being unveiled to the press at midday, with the player holding up his new number five jersey at the club alongside president Florentino Perez.

The number five jersey was famously worn by legendary midfielder Zidane during his time at the Santiago Bernabeu between 2001 and 2006.

Zidane is a player Bellingham notably grew up idolising, and speaking about who inspires him the most as a football, the England star previously said: "Easy, man. Zidane first. just the coolest guy ever. Yeah, I'd probably say Zidane. It was the first time I felt being in awe of someone."

Speaking about Zidane and his iconic number at his unveiling press conference, Bellingham said: "I've said how much I admire Zinedine Zidane, the legacy he has with the club. With this number, I'm not trying to be the same as him, I'm just trying to be Jude, but it's definitely a bit of homage to how great he was."

Bellingham joins a team full of modern midfield greats, with legendary duo Luka Modric and Toni Kroos still going strong for Los Blancos. The pair have won a five UEFA Champions Leagues together at the club, and have played a combined 905 games for the club.

There's plenty of young midfield talent on the books too, as Bellingham is set to join Aurelien Tchouameni, Eduardo Camavinga and Federico Valverde as the next generation of midfield stars at the Santiago Bernabeu.

The number five was most recently worn at Real Madrid by Jesus Vallejo, but he has vacated it to take the number 24.

"I'd like to thank Jesus Vallejo for letting me wear the number five. I had some contact with him just to see if it was okay with him, and he was a brilliant, brilliant guy letting me wear it and just being so nice about it. I'm very grateful to him," Bellingham said on Wednesday.

Prior to Vallejo, Raphael Varane wore it for five seasons before heading to Manchester United. Fabio Coentrao, Nuri Sahin, Fernando Gago and Fabio Cannavaro are the other players to have donned the number in the post-Zidane playing era.