JUDE'S THE DUDE!

He's just 20 but is already one of the world's most expensive footballers

- NASIFA SULAIMAN

HE COULD cherry-pick from the best the English Premier League had to offer - Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City were all desperate to sign him after he'd made his mark for England at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

But in the end he chose the club that gave him goosebumps when he heard of their offer - and what an offer it was.

At just 19 years old Jude Bellingham signed with Spanish super club Real Madrid on a staggering deal worth €103 million (R2 billion) with an extra €134m (R2,4bn) to come later.

He's become the world's highest-valued midfielder and the sixyear deal brokered by his manager father, Mark, is the fifth biggest transfer of all time.

"My heart was close to stopping, Jude says of the moment his dad told him about Real's offer. "It has the greatest history in the world and the players have contributed to making it the best team in the world," he says. "It's a great opportunity that I couldn't turn down".

His teammates are excited about his arrival at the Bernabéu, where he'll don the No 5 jersey.

It's the same shirt his boyhood hero Zinedine Zidane wore when he was at the club.

Zidane, a former manager of Real Madrid, has great faith in the club's newest signing. "He's an important player, a player with a great future and he's ready to play for Real Madrid," he says.

AS A young boy growing up in Birmingham in the UK, Jude started playing at the age of four but wasn't always excited about it.

"As soon as you put a football in front of him, he wasn't really interested, says Phil Woolridge, his first coach. "It took a while for him to get into it.