The Blaugrana were keen on signing the England midfielder in his teenage years, but the experience of a close friend meant it never happened
In May 2023, pictures of an old scrapbook emerged. In the pages, printed in 2009, a young Jude Bellingham described his dream job: "A professional footballer for Barcelona and England."
Those comments, expressed by a child who had not yet reached his teens, were soon used as ammunition by Barcelona fans to declare, definitively, that Bellingham would sign for the Blaugrana that summer. They weren't the only fanbase to make lofty assumptions with little evidence, but their claim, based on the scribblings of a child, was among the more far-fetched.
Of course, things turned out differently. Bellingham signed for Real Madrid, and has quickly established himself as one of the best players in not just La Liga, but Europe. On Saturday, he will face off against Barca in his first taste of El Clasico, taking the field at the Olympic Stadium for Los Blancos in what could already prove to be a pivotal clash in the title race. It is the perfect contest for a rising star to show himself as being one of the world's best.
But those Barca fans who clung to old scrapbooks, it has since turned out, came closer than they might have thought to having their wishes come true. Although a host of clubs chased after Bellingham throughout his teens — Manchester City and Liverpool were also keen suitors — the Blaugrana had a real chance of landing him from Birmingham City before anyone outside of England's second city knew his name.
In 2019, in fact, Barca secured a meeting with Bellingham's father, Mark, only for him not to show up. The reasons why were only recently made public…
BarcelonaWhy did Barca fail?
This all starts with a different English teenager: Louie Barry. A Birmingham boy like Bellingham, Barry had impressed over a 10-year spell at the West Brom academy, and, before even making a first-team appearance, had fielded interest from Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona.
Barry eventually chose Barca, and became the first English player to ever walk through the doors of the famed La Masia academy. However, things didn't go to plan from the outset, and as a close friend of Bellingham's from their time in the England youth set-up, word of his struggles soon got back to the Midlands.
Just five months after the Barry penned his Barca contract, the Catalan club were due a meeting with Mark Bellingham in London. It did not go to plan.
"He didn't show up to the meeting," Bojan Krkic Sr., father of the former Barcelona attacker and a club scout for over a decade, told in 2022. "I know he did it to a lot of people. His excuse with us was that we had already signed an Englishman his age [Barry] from Aston Villa or West Bromwich, and he jokingly said: 'My son will not sign for Barca because he cannot play with someone of that limited quality'."
Bellingham did go on to leave Birmingham in the summer of 2020, joining Borussia Dortmund that July.
AdvertisementGetty ImagesWhat happened to Barry at Barca?
And Bellingham's father was arguably right in his judgment of how Barry had been treated in Catalunya. The teenage forward never really found his footing at La Masia, despite reportedly impressing on the training pitches.
The problems started early on. West Brom believed they were owed £235,000 ($285,000) compensation for having their academy's brightest talent pinched. A cash-strapped Barca disputed that, and arguments over paperwork went on and on, all while Barry was unable to make his competitive debut for over two months.
Once he was cleared to play, Barry didn't get the opportunities many expected he would. The 16-year-old was thrown into Barca's Under-19 setup, and but constantly saw older, more experienced players get chances to play ahead of him. Sources close to the player told GOAL in 2021 that the player's different style saw him siphoned out of the team. His patience, quite appropriately, was wearing thin.
“Louie wasn’t happy with the time he was given, and justifiably so,” a source involved in the deal that took him to Camp Nou said. “He always played well and got some goals. His team-mates thought he was a great striker."
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in spring 2020 saw Barca crowned U19 league champions early, but despite signing an initial three-year deal with the club, Barry had already left. Aston Villa, the club he had supported throughout his childhood, had made their interest known in January, and Barry jumped at the chance, leaving Spain without ever coming close to the senior team.
Getty ImagesDid Bellingham make the right choice?
Bellingham saw his career go another way. He signed for Dortmund around six months after Barry left Barca, and the move was met with a mixture of surprise and confusion from fans around Europe. Dortmund paid Birmingham a staggering €25m (£23m/$29m) for a 17-year-old with no top-flight experience, while his boyhood club famously retired his No. 22 shirt. It has since emerged that Bellingham turned down not only Barcelona, but also rebuffed serious interest from Manchester United to continue his footballing career in Germany.
And it seems he made the right decision. Bellingham wasn't an instant hit in Dortmund. Rather, he was given a chance to grow into the Bundesliga side, staying away from the spotlight of big clubs, and avoiding the inevitable scrutiny that would have come if he penned a deal with Barca or United.
But his quality was undeniable. After working his way into the team during the 2020-21 season, Bellingham started nearly every game in the next two, and a standout campaign last year almost drove Dortmund to an unlikely league title. He made Gareth Southgate's England squad for the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020, and was a crucial player for the Three Lions in the Qatar World Cup at the end of 2022.
He was always likely to leave last summer. Although Dortmund made repeated efforts to get the teenager to pen a new deal, Madrid came in with an offer that was simply too good to turn down — paying up after a long courting process. Going to Germany, then, was the best possible decision he could have made.
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Getty ImagesWould Bellingham have fit at Barca?
A Barca move might not have been catastrophic, though. After all, the Englishman is an immensely-talented midfielder who, even at 17, would've had a chance to break into the Blaugrana's first team.
Barca, at that time, were undergoing immense change as a football club, and bringing a handful of talented young players into the side. Bellingham would have broken through at the same time as Ansu Fati and Pedri, completing what could have been a deadly trio in the attacking third. Add that to the fact that a certain Lionel Messi was still floating around, and there is reason to believe that it could have worked out. Team success, it seems, could have been attainable.
But the cons certainly outweigh the pros here. To be a youngster in Catalunya is to live in Messi's shadow. The better the player, the more difficult it becomes to succeed, it seems. Fati, who was hailed as 'the next Messi' and ultimately given his No.10 shirt, has already burned out. Pedri was overused and now cannot stay fit for an extended period of time. Bellingham's legs needed to be protected — they still do now. Going to Barca could have thrown that all into jeopardy.
And then there would be the pressure of being a 17-year-old, unorthodox Englishman in Barcelona. Bellingham's technical quality is undeniable, but the midfielder is certainly not a player who would fit the classic La Masia mould. He's under an immense amount of scrutiny now, at Real Madrid, after proving he can be one of the best in the world. Things would simply have be much worse three or four years ago.