'It's infectious': Bellingham channels remontada spirit and targets Real history

Englishman explains belief in another comeback as his manager says 'there is no magic', just a need for a plan

- Sid Lowe

Honestly, I've heard it about a million times since last week," Jude Bellingham said. No word has been repeated as often inside the dressing room or outside it either: on the front pages of the newspapers, on radio, TV and TikTok, where the Englishman apologetically admitted: "I get my education from these days," or in the "million videos" he has watched. Bound into the mystique of Real Madrid, their never-ending story, it means comeback and it is written; it also means this isn't over, even when it should be.

And while it has been consciously created and cumulative, gathering pace as planned over the seven days that followed defeat in London, Bellingham says the belief was back even before they were: in fact, it was already there by the time they boarded the bus. Now it almost feels like it was better to lose the first leg to Arsenal 3-0. He knows that sounds as absurd as it surely is, and was keen to analyse the flaws to be addressed, but this way the second leg is set up to be more epic, more like them. "A night that's made for Real Madrid," Bellingham called it, one that "would go down in history but also something people here are familiar with".