Jude Bellingham’s time at Birmingham City is again being mentioned by the Spanish media today.
This time, it comes from Cadena Ser, who feature a story to talk about Aitor Karanka’s 10th anniversary as a manager.
The outlet mentioned the few jobs the coach had in his career, and one of them was at Birmingham City, whom he managed between July 2020 and March 2021.
With Bellingham’s current success at Real Madrid, they recalled that the midfielder belonged to the Blues at the time Karanka arrived, even though the manager couldn’t make much use of him, as his sale was already agreed.
“Fair enough. When I signed there were 3-4 games left, it was the pandemic year. The first Birmingham game I saw, I called the director and asked him about that kid and he said… ‘no, no. Forget that kid. Forget about that kid, he’s not going to be there’. The truth is that’s when you realise what Bellingham is all about,” Karanka told Cadena Ser.
“The next game I saw him again and I told the general manager that he was going to get injured and we weren’t going to enjoy him and we weren’t going to get anything. The general manager told me that he was 17 years old, but the team needed three points and he said that until he saved the team he was going to give everything. When he was 17, in his city team, he already had that thought of wanting to give everything. That’s why he is where he is at 20.”
That summer, Bellingham left Birmingham City in a €30m transfer to Borussia Dortmund. He played in Germany for three years until agreeing the recent €103m move to Real Madrid, where he soon became a superstar.
Karanka stayed in charge of the Blues for 38 matches, having just eight wins, with 11 draws and 19 losses. He then managed Granada and Maccabi Tel Aviv, and has been without a club since last summer.
