Birmingham City supporters will always wish they saw more than one season from Jude Bellingham, who has enjoyed a stunning career trajectory after leaving the West Midlands.
Bellingham first joined Birmingham’s academy at under-eights level and made the graduation to the club’s first-team fold at the tender age of 16.
He became the youngest player in Blues history when he debuted against Portsmouth in the EFL Cup aged just 16 years and 38 days before going on to make 44 appearances across all competitions during the 2019/20 campaign.
The midfielder played with both confidence and composure far beyond his youthful years and was duly crowned as the EFL’s Young Player of the Season.
Bellingham, who famously saw his shirt number retired by Birmingham, soon became the most expensive 17-year-old of all time by earning a £25 million move to Borussia Dortmund that summer after reportedly snubbing advances from Manchester United.
Of course, the rest is history. Bellingham made more than 100 appearances for Dortmund across three sensational years before joining Real Madrid for a reported £88.5 million fee last summer, and his career has reached fresh heights in the Spanish capital.
Bellingham, who scored 23 goals and made a further 13 assists during his first season with Los Blancos to help them to both LaLiga and UEFA Champions League glory, is widely regarded among the very best players in world football at the age of 21.
| Jude Bellingham’s career stats across all competitions, as per FotMob | |||||
| Season | Division | Club | Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| 2019/20 | Championship | Birmingham City | 44 | 4 | 2 |
| 2020/21 | Bundesliga | Borussia Dortmund | 46 | 4 | 4 |
| 2021/22 | Bundesliga | Borussia Dortmund | 44 | 6 | 13 |
| 2022/23 | Bundesliga | Borussia Dortmund | 42 | 14 | 6 |
| 2023/24 | LaLiga | Real Madrid | 42 | 23 | 13 |
| 2024/25 [as of October 7] | LaLiga | Real Madrid | 8 | 0 | 2 |
Blues supporters will feel a sense of pride watching his career unfold from afar, but the question remains of what could have been if he stayed put for longer than one season.
Jude Bellingham, Birmingham City verdict issued
We asked our resident Blues fan pundit, Mike Gibbs, to name one player he wishes he had seen more of for his club and he responded by namechecking the Real Madrid starlet.
“It’s a really easy answer for me, and that’s Jude Bellingham,” Mike told Football League World.
“Given COVID in that season, I was only fortunate enough to watch him once which was against Leeds. I seem to remember it was around the turn of the year.
“He absolutely ran the show, I think we lost 4-5 but he scored one and ran the game as a 16-year-old.
“So yeah, I’d have loved to have more opportunity to watch him, it was such a shame we only got him for one season but what a season it was.”
Jude Bellingham’s success reflects well on Birmingham City
Birmingham fans are entitled to have wanted to see more than one season from Bellingham, although the club deserve immense credit for his subsequent trajectory.
Indeed, many clubs beneath the Category One academy threshold, and particularly those within the EFL, are often susceptible to losing their finest prospects before their graduation to first-team level, but Birmingham were able to retain Bellingham and ended up getting one memorable campaign out of him.
The midfielder is a star turn for both Real Madrid and the England national team, but Blues are deserving of a fair share of plaudits for engineering his development in the first place.