Jude Bellingham: Mental Strength and Success

What does a team lose when a player’s departure also means losing a certain attitude?

A departure can be described in goals, passes and minutes played. It can also reveal how strongly a player shaped a team’s attitude.

This author’s reflection from September 2023 uses Jude Bellingham’s transfer to explore mental strength, suitable roles and coaches’ responsibilities. Statistics cannot answer every question. Which behaviours give a team direction, especially when things become difficult?

Jude Bellingham deserves more credit for Borussia Dortmund’s achievements in the 2022/2023 season than some media commentators have given him. Today, Dortmund are missing not only his footballing ability but, above all, his mental strength. Taking only five points from three matches against relatively weak opponents has shown that his departure is harder to absorb than one might have expected.

For the author, Bellingham was Dortmund’s mentally strongest leader in 2022/2023. His attitude in training and matches shaped the team. The resulting football judgement is equally clear: in the author’s view, Dortmund would have won their final match against Mainz and taken the German championship had Bellingham been on the pitch.

Bellingham also demonstrated his mental strength and footballing qualities playing for England. Yet few anticipated how quickly he would settle into Real Madrid’s winning team. Some of the credit here also belongs to Carlo Ancelotti, the best coach in the world, who not only brought him to the club but also found the ideal position for him within the team.

Even the decisions of renowned coaches can sometimes give us pause. All eleven players contribute to the way a team works together; a single player in the wrong position can significantly weaken it. With goalkeepers and defenders, the consequences are often especially immediate. A coach’s response to repeated mistakes during a match matters just as much.

Of course, mistakes must be accepted. But not when a player gives the ball to the opposition five times in a short period, or a defender is late getting into position five times and can only chase the opposing attackers. Nor is it acceptable for an attacking player to ignore a better-positioned teammate five times, passing up the chance to create a clear-cut opportunity and instead taking unsuccessful shots himself.

When a coach accepts play riddled with such repeated errors, it works against building and developing a culture of winners.

But how did Bellingham develop his mental strength, and, above all, how can he call on it in practically every match? That is a question we would have to put directly to him!

It is reasonable to assume that a team without winners — mentally strong footballers — will not achieve great success. At present, Manchester City stand out for having the largest number of such players in their squad. That fits with the titles they won in the 2023 season, including the Champions League.