Bellingham, Camavinga and Tchouameni are worthy successors at Madrid
PETE JENSON: Bellingham, Camavinga and Tchouameni are worthy successors to ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of Modric, Kroos and Casemiro… building the best midfield in the world (again!) is a masterstroke from Real Madrid
- Jude Bellingham’s arrival at Real Madrid marks the start of a new midfield era
- He will join Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni in a new-look midfield
- But Luka Modric and Toni Kroos will still play big roles now and in the future
Real Madrid have a brand new midfield with an average age of 21 years to take them into the next decade and all three components of that midfield have said they are, in part at least, at the club because of Zinedine Zidane.
You would not put it past the 14-times European Cup winners to bring their very own Godfather back to the club as coach for a third time in 2024 to manage the stars his huge influence has helped attract.
He would take charge of the most exciting midfield in European football and probably have Kylian Mbappe in the mix as well.
Bringing Zidane back is probably the only job the club will not give to their chief scout Juni Calafat who has proved time an again over the last decade that he can deliver on the most difficult of challenges.
In 2013 Calafat was tasked with making sure the club never again missed out on the best young talent coming out of Brazil as they had done with Neymar who instead signed for Barcelona.
Jude Bellingham’s arrival at Real Madrid signals the beginning of a new midfield era at the club
Bellingham was unveiled to the media as a Real player after completing his £113m move
Trio of Toni Kroos (left) Casemiro (middle) and Luka Modric (right) won every available honour
The Madrid-born talent spotter who grew up in Brazil delivered with Vinicius, Rodrygo and striker Endrick who won’t be 17 until next month and should be in the first team squad by 2024.
Calafat’s next mission seemed an impossible one but again he has defied the odds. How do you replace the Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric trinity? ‘The Bermuda Triangle’ was what Carlo Ancelotti dubbed them. You put the ball in there and it disappears from the opposition.
But with Aurelien Tchouameni, 23, Jude Bellingham 20 at the end of this month, and Eduardo Camavinga, 20, he has found a trio worthy of their soon-to-be predecessors.
Financial muscle helped Real Madrid push in ahead of Liverpool to land Tchouameni but it seemed they signed Camavinga when the rest of Europe was sleeping. He was only 19 but the Spanish club, on Calafat’s word, didn’t think twice about paying 40m euros for him.
He helped the club win the Champions League as a super-sub in his first season. And cemented his place in the starting XI as a midfielder who could also excel at full-back, in his second year.
Madrid had wanted to wait a year before taking Camavinga but were advised by his representatives that that might not be wise. Shrewdly, Calafat listened and they have not regretted going early.
With Bellingham the interest stretches back into the 2021-22 season when he was already showing at Dortmund – practically a partner club for Real Madrid with various link-ups over the years – that he, like Camavinga, was not one who you should wait around for.
‘It was about 12, 15 months ago when my dad sat me down and told me there was interest from Real Madrid,’ Bellingham admitted in his press conference on Thursday.
Bellingham (left) will play an integral part in Madrid’s new-look midfield alongside fellow youngsters Eduardo Camavinga (middle) and Aurelien Tchouameni (right)
Zinedine Zidane has been influential in helping lure players to Madrid and it would be no surprise to see him return for another managerial stint
Modric has been the best midfielder in the world at Madrid but at the age of 37 is edging towards retirement
The way Calafat sold the club to the player made him and his family’s mind up. The unwritten motto is: sell the history first, then the idea that the young player can write his own chapter in it. It has worked time and again.
Madrid knew in Bellingham they had someone who was a wide-eyed 10-year-old in 2014 when they won an epic Champions final against Atletico Madrid in Lisbon courtesy of a 94th minute equaliser that took the game into extra time.
Florentino Perez said in his welcoming speech to Bellingham that Madrid ‘never gives up’ and that was the message to him in those early meetings. He had seen it first hand in that final.
Madrid won another three Champions Leagues from 2016 to 2018. Bellingham would have been by then 15 and the Spanish side’s domination during those impressionable years was a key part in making him opt for Spain.
Real Madrid invited him to join them in continuing that incredible Champions League legacy and as he said on Thursday: ‘I couldn’t turn them down’.
Germany’s Toni Kroos has formed a formidable part of Madrid’s ‘Bermuda Triangle’ midfield
Casemiro was first to leave Madrid’s midfield when he joined Manchester United last summer
When they won the trophy again in 2022 he was in a box in Paris to see them do it, with Zidane not too far away – close enough for him to ask a question of his hero. ‘I would have talked his ear off if he had let me’ he admitted at his Madrid presentation.
How could all this magic not rub off on a player who could have joined any club in Europe but never looked beyond Real Madrid?
Bellingham’s mind was set and his Premier League suitors knew it. Manchester City and Liverpool never got around to presenting their own financial package because they realized early on that Bellingham wanted to play at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Madrid officials met again with Bellingham’s lawyers in March in London and by now it was just a case of keeping everything under wraps so as not to disrespect the final months of Dortmund’s Bundesliga campaign.
Bellingham’s mind had been made up after deciding to join Real Madrid early into discussions
Bellingham’s arrival at Real Madrid makes him the most expensive English player in history
Real in 2023
Courtois (age 31), Carvajal (31), Militao (25), Alaba (30), Garcia (23), Camavinga (20), Tchouameni (23), Bellingham (19), Valverde (24), Rodrygo (22), Vinicius (22)
Negotiating with Dortmund also became easier once the player had decided where he wanted to go. They knew they had to make a deal work with Madrid or face losing him to the Spanish club next year for a much smaller fee because he would be in his final season.
The old one-two of Calafat and Zidane had worked once more – the charm of the latter and the graft, ingenuity and gentle persistence of the former. Zidane had asked the club to sign Tchouameni just before he left in 2021.
Of his role in persuading Camavinga, the player told Mail Sport: ‘Zidane was my idol – he was all our idols! I used to do the famous ‘roulette’ I’d seen on a Zidane skills YouTube video.’ And the now 50-year-old currently out of work coach was there in the mix for the signing of Bellingham too.
We know he’s ready to return to management and that he will be very selective about his next position. The France job appeals but it might not be available. He has already turned down Paris Saint Germain.
Zidane maintains a strong relationship with Madrid hierarchy and could be brought back
His relationship with Perez remains firm and a third act to his managerial role at the club cannot be ruled out.
For now it’s Ancelotti, in his final season, that has the job of making the smooth transition between what’s left of the greatest midfield in the club’s history – Kroos and Modric will still want to have a big role this season – and the next generation.
With or without Zidane in the dug-out, and Mbappe on the pitch in 2024 the club has turned the page of one glorious chapter to a new one which is every bit as full of promise.
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