GALACTICO READY FOR HIS NEXT STEP TO GREATNESS

AT JUST 20, Jude Bellingham gives the impression of a generational sportsman whose career has been mapped out from infancy.

- Dan Kilpatrick

He has already moved seamlessly from home town club Birmingham to Borussia Dortmund, among the best developers of young talent in Europe, and now on to the biggest stage of all at Real Madrid. His rise has occasionally appeared scripted, which will rarely have felt more true than in tomorrow's Wembley showpiece.

At the end of a remarkable first season at Madrid, in which he inspired them to the Spanish title and was named La Liga's player of the year, Bellingham has the chance to not only win the biggest prize in club football, but to do so against his former club and in his national stadium.

Winning the Champions League so soon after joining Los Blancos and in such dream circumstances would just feel like another step on this latest galactico's inevitable journey to becoming one of the game's modern greats.

And, as if that possibility were not enough, barring mishap Bellingham will star for England at this summer's European Championship, where he has an opportunity to immortalise his name by winning the tournament with Gareth Southgate's well-fancied side.