Pep Clotet moved to Birmingham City in March 2018, becoming assistant manager to Garry Monk, someone he’d worked with repeatedly before.
Monk later spoke negatively of his former assistant, after Clotet had replaced him at the club. Things didn’t last long, with the latter leaving his role in July 2019.
Since then, the Spaniard has had brief roles in charge of Brescia and SPAL, and has been out of work since January of this year.
During his time at Birmingham City, Clotet gave Jude Bellingham his debut with the club. The midfielder then went on to sign for Borussia Dortmund, and in the past week or so he’s been linked with a 2023 move to Real Madrid.
Spanish newspaper AS have spoken to Clotet, who is still in touch with Bellingham, about a possible move to Los Blancos.
Talking about his maturity, the coach explained: “I saw him play when he was 15 years old and when he was 16 I took him to a preseason, and I remember that from the beginning he was one of the others in training. Paco Herrera, who worked with me, told me that he was going to be great. He looked like he had been there his whole life. He was born for football, and his family is very football-loving.”
AS then wanted to know what Bellingham’s ‘next dream’ is. They likely asked this hoping for Clotet to say the Dortmund player has always had an eye on Real Madrid, but they didn’t get that answer.
Instead, came an explanation of the player’s love for Birmingham City.
“He has always been a Birmingham City fan. There you are from the club of the city in which you were born. No matter the category, he will always have Birmingham in his heart. He makes decisions based on growth, that pushed him to go to Dortmund. I talk a lot with him about the future and football in Spain, I’ve told him that he has qualities that are more common for some teams, I see that he can find himself very well at Madrid.”
