Jude Bellingham impressing his idols! Zinedine Zidane ‘a big fan’ of Real Madrid sensation as legendary midfielder blown away by ‘incredible’ Englishman

When Bellingham moved to the Spanish capital in the summer, he decided to wear the No.5 jersey at Real Madrid, an iconic shirt previously worn by Zidane himself. While many scoffed at the daring of a 20-year-old, his performances on the pitch have silenced his critics and now the former midfield maestro himself has lavished praise on the youngster.

During a chat with Adidas, Zidane said: "He’s an unbelievable player who does incredible things. You could have imagined what he was going to do, but he’s surpassed all the statistics with what he’s doing.

"Don’t forget that he’s only 20 years old. He arrived at Real Madrid with a lot of desire, a lot of goals and he is setting the bar very high. He’s just showing everyone what he is and it’s great to see him like that. I’m a big fan of his and now we want him to win trophies with Real Madrid. It’s everything he wanted for himself.”

Bellingham has become the poster boy of Adidas and has featured in several commercials promoting the new line of Adidas predator boots, which was once worn by Zidane. He first wore those boots against Napoli in the Champions League and also scored the second goal for his team in a 4-2 win over the reigning Serie A champions.

Bellingham has 20 goals and eight assists to his name in his maiden campaign at the Santiago Bernabeu. He leads the goal-scoring charts in La Liga and has already surpassed Zidane's tally of most strikes in a season for the club with a brace against Barcelona earlier in October.