What Jude Bellingham did after Carlo Ancelotti took him off early in Real Madrid’s 3-1 Champions League loss to AC Milan says a lot.
The Champions League started up again on Tuesday night, after a week-long break. Some of Europe’s best teams played in the fourth day of the new format.
In a shocking result, AC Milan beat Real Madrid 3-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu. This was Real Madrid’s second straight loss, after losing 4-0 to Barcelona in El Classico last month.
Now, a video of Real Madrid star Bellingham’s response to being taken off early in the game has surfaced online. It says a lot about how he feels about the club and manager Ancelotti right now.
Immediately after Tijjani Reijnders scored Milan’s third goal of the match in the 73rd minute, sealing the result, Ancelotti decided to take Bellingham off, frustrating the Englishman.
And in a viral clip of the moment, the 21-year-old is seen kicking a water bottle in anger as soon as he came off the pitch, showing his disappointment at his side’s poor performance.
Despite a massively impressive first season with Los Blancos, Bellingham has struggled in the 2023/24 season and it was no different on Tuesday night.
The midfielder was not involved in Madrid’s only goal in the game and didn’t register a single shot on target during the match.
In 11 appearances across all competitions this season, Bellingham is yet to score a goal for Madrid and has managed just three assists.
Comparatively, he scored an incredible 23 goals and assisted another 13 in 42 appearances in all competitions last season.
Jude Bellingham was frustrated after Real Madrid’s 3-1 loss to AC Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday. (Image: Getty)
His performances last season led to him finishing third in the 2024 Ballon d’Or rankings, behind teammate Vinicius Junior, the goalscorer for Madrid on Tuesday, and Manchester City’s Rodri.
But despite his lacklustre performances this season, Ancelotti has said he isn’t worried about his star player and that he is still happy with how he has played this season.
Speaking ahead of Madrid’s previous Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund, he said: “We’re satisfied with his work, I’m very satisfied. He works a lot, he’s always present, he competes, he fights, he sacrifices himself.
“It’s true he hasn’t scored the goals he scored last year, but the surprise isn’t this year, the surprise was last year, when he scored lots of goals which nobody expected and helped us a lot.”