Jude Bellingham must use El Clasico to show he - not Marcus Rashford - remains La Liga's top English dog

It is no secret that madrid were struggling in the final days of Carlo Ancelotti's reign. The great Italian tactician had, basically, run out of ideas as to how to get his side to tick. It was looking increasingly like Kylian Mbappe was a high-wages mistake, and with Vinicius Jr also misfiring, Ancelotti basically resorted to a 4-4-2, asking two speedy forwards to play up front with Bellingham just tucked in behind.

And whether it be due to individual effort or poor setups, Bellingham could never quite make it work. He still scored and assisted here and there, but his general play was lacking. He missed tackles, was loose in his passing, and sometimes simply gave up on plays. One particularly poor moment in the Clasico - in which Bellingham was dispossessed, complained to the referee, and watched his man saunter to the other end of the field and smack the ball home - summed things up. Bellingham was frustrated, emotional and far from his best.

To be clear, he is not to blame for Madrid's woes. It was a combination of factors, but Bellingham felt them the hardest. The criticism was perhaps a tad unfair. But Bellingham had been a Ballon d'Or candidate in his first season in Madrid. Make no mistake, this was a significant drop-off.

Part of the problem was that Bellingham was playing hurt - and had been for over a year. He dislocated his shoulder twice during his first season at the Santiago Bernabeu, and played with heavy strapping for months. He couldn't get surgery in the summer of 2024 because he had a Euros to lose. After that, it seemed, Madrid had a perfect window. But they were, once again, reluctant to let their main man in midfield go under the knife.

So, he continued to play through it. May 2025 would have seemed an optimal window, too. But in an effort to try to win the Club World Cup, Madrid further delayed it, asking the midfielder to play through a hot American summer with a shoulder that was still giving him discomfort. 

To put it simply, Bellingham looked exhausted at the Club World Cup. He never really found any form, and as Alonso tinkered with his XI, Bellingham never quite settled. There was a lethargy to his play - and Madrid's in general. They were ultimately battered by Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-final, and there was perhaps an unspoken relief to it all: one less game to play, and a chance for Bellingham to reset.

And that should have set things up rather nicely. It became clear that the Englishman would miss pre-season and a couple months of the new campaign. But even that might only have highlighted just how important he was to Alonso's project. Presumably, Madrid would soon learn how much they needed him.

Except they didn't.

Alonso made Arda Guler the centrepiece of his side at the Club World Cup, and hailed the young Turk as a potential cornerstone going forward. He suggested that Guler could play pretty much anywhere - right wing, No.10, even as a deep-lying playmaker. And he was rewarded with a string of fine performances from the 'Turkish Messi', who has undisputedly been one of the best players in La Liga this season.

"He gives great meaning to the game. When he's involved, we have a better team dynamic...I'm very happy with his progress, but we want more. He really enjoys playing football. He wants to find the pass, take the free-kick...[Florian] Wirtz was like that at Leverkusen. He's young, but he's a great player," Alonso said earlier this week.

Guler has backed it up with production, too, tallying 11 goal contributions to date. 

There were some fair questions to be asked, then, as to whether Guler and Bellingham could play together. Alonso has been tactically flexible in his early days, but neither Bellingham nor Guler is a true No.8. One of them had to suffer, in some way. However, Alonso rubbished that notion, and insisted that he would be able fit both of them into the side. 

"We have to see how we position the other pieces. We need a balance, where we need to connect in those areas as best as possible. For me, how to get to Bellingham is always very important, how to get to the No.10 position. Arda Guler has been able to play No.10 and a little deeper, maybe not so much in the league now, but he can do it. They have to find their feet; they have to flow and feel comfortable. They can do it. I've seen them do it together, and I'm sure they'll do it again," he said in early October.

And so it has proved. Bellingham and Guler aren't exactly humming, but they have worked in some ways. They started together against Juventus, and were effective in an attacking sense. Bellingham scored the only goal, and Guler created seven chances. The flip side, of course, was that Madrid were vulnerable defensively, with neither player filling the necessary holes in the middle - and leaving Los Blancos exposed on the break. Better sides would have punished them.

The concerns are only heightened by the fact that there is a World Cup to play in eight months and Thomas Tuchel pretty much has to win it; make no mistake, the German's one remit is to bring football home. And so far, the signs look pretty good. Tuchel has done his experimentation and pieced together a clean, effective side that plays a 4-2-3-1 immensely effectively. The midfield balance here is key. Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson make for a solid midfield pairing - a good base for a quality attacking midfielder to pull the strings.

Logic dictates that Bellingham would be the man. England have plenty of other options there: Morgan Rogers, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer. But Bellingham is arguably better than all three. Still, in the time in which Bellingham was recovering from injury, Tuchel turned to Rogers, and refused to call Bellingham up for his October squad. In abstract, that was reasonable; Bellingham still wasn't fit, Rogers was playing well; England had a World Cup to qualify for. Tuchel made the objectively smart move by sticking with what he knew.

The problem is, Rogers looks really rather good in this side, and buys into the kind of football that Tuchel wants to play. His defensive work rate is immense, while his understanding with Harry Kane is always improving. Right now, he looks un-droppable. 

It must be established here that Marcus Rashford is not direct competition with Bellingham. He plays on the left or through the middle. There is, in fact, an ideal world in which both of them play together - one feeding the other. Think, but not too hard, and there's a real possibility in which that combination leads to material success next summer.

But Rashford's arrival in Barcelona - and subsequent early success - has brought about conversations about relative success here. Bellingham, it was assumed, was facing somethong of an English tax in Spain. He struggled now and then? Well, yeah, it's because he's not from here. Rashford, meanwhile, has done away with that notion. 

And when the two meet this weekend, there's something a little deeper to it all - one Englishman pitted against the other, presumably with just one spot on the plane on the line. 

That means Bellingham has to do it for his club. And here, the situation is no easier; Guler is playing well, Franco Mastantuono will also have his moments here and there. Alonso has shown, too, that he has no problem at all resting players when they need to be given a night off. 

But Sunday is the game that Bellingham made his own two years ago. His breakout campaign for Madrid was full of magical performances. But in the Clasico, he invariably reached another level. He scored winning goals against Barcelona twice, and routinely ripped the Blaugrana midfield to shreds, popping up here, there and everywhere as an all-action No.10. He has a penchant for the big game, too; his overhead kick against Slovakia to send England to the quarter-finals of Euro 2024 will live long in the collective memory. 

Those traits will need to resurface. Barca aren't quite the force they were last year, but Hansi Flick's side are still La Liga favorites. They also have that Lamine Yamal guy who should be fully fit. Marcus Rashford has found immaculate form there, too. And so it comes down to Bellingham, who has to go from doing funny drills to asserting himself on the kind of game he loves. Get it right, and he might just remind everyone exactly how good he is.