There were a few tourists from Madrid taking selfies outside the Allianz Arena yesterday lunchtime and, as footballing pilgrimages go, this is one you really have to want. Wedged between two major road junctions and approached either through a concrete jungle of slip roads or a 40-minute schlep on the train followed by a long trudge past a sewage treatment plant, perhaps the nicest thing you can say about the location of Bayern Munich's stadium is that it at least offers easy access to everywhere else.
How many times will Harry Kane have to peer at this stadium through blacked-out windows before it begins to feel like home? The language will take years to master, if he ever manages it. The Allianz does not feel like a part of Munich in the way that the Estadio Bernabéu looms above Madrid or the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium looms above the High Road. And, of course, his name has already been made at the boyhood club that still has a buy-back clause for him. However long he stays at Bayern, on some level home will always be somewhere else.
Jude Bellingham has only been at Real Madrid for 10 months, and yet already it feels like 10 years. As he returns to Germany for the Champions League semi-final, he does so as one of the most adored footballers on the planet, as universally accepted as your favourite credit card. More than this: somehow in his comportment, Bellingham seems to represent some intangible quality that goes beyond anything he can do on a football pitch, the same quality that Kane for all his talents - does not.
Denne historien er fra April 30, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian.
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Denne historien er fra April 30, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian.
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