Ancelotti Unconcerned About Bellingham’s Goallessness: “It Was A Surprise Last Year”

After 23 goals in 2023/24

When Karim Benzema (36) left Real Madrid last year and no well-known replacement came because the Spanish record champions were waiting for Kylian Mbappé (25), there was great concern: Who would now score the goals for the Royals? The answer was Jude Bellingham (21), who had previously scored at BVB, but whose tasks there were different in central midfield. The Englishman played brilliantly in Real’s system, scored 23 competitive goals, became champions and won the Champions League. It’s completely different in 2024/25, where Bellingham has so far been completely without a goal of its own in nine games. However, this is not a problem for coach Carlo Ancelotti.

“I am very satisfied with his work because he works a lot, is always present, stands up, fights, sacrifices himself. He’s not scoring like he did last year, but that’s no surprise. “The surprise was last year,” the Italian was quoted as saying on “realtotal.de” on Monday during the press conference before the Champions League game against Bellingham’s former club Borussia Dortmund (Tuesday, 9 p.m.).

“We’re not missing any goals from Bellingham. We will always score goals because we have great players up front. He hasn’t changed his position often, only recently he played on the right because we thought he would find more space there. The left side is more occupied this season because Mbappé likes to play there. With Bellingham and Rodrygo we can be a little more effective on the right, like we are on the left.”

In his first season at Real, Bellingham usually played in the attacking midfield and repeatedly pushed forward from the backcourt. Now that there are two new strikers in Mbappé and Endrick (18) and Vinicius Junior (24) also plays more often on the nine, he is sometimes used a little further back, on the eight or on the half wing (all Bellingham games for Real and its positions at a glance).