Born to play for Madrid, Bellingham can conquer the Clasico - ESPN

Jude Bellingham has made playing for Real Madrid look easy. You've heard the headline number by now: eight goals in his first nine LaLiga games. Those goals — which have come from just 22 shots, 15 of them on target — have propelled Madrid to the top of the Spanish league ahead of Saturday's El Clasico showdown with champions Barcelona (10 a.m. ET, stream live on ESPN+).

No Karim Benzema? No Kylian Mbappé? No problem. Take a 20-year-old midfielder, newly arrived at the biggest club in the world for a €103 million transfer fee, and build the attack around him. Ditch the 4-3-3 you're used to playing, and introduce a midfield diamond to get Bellingham as close to the box as possible.

So far, coach Carlo Ancelotti's gamble has been rewarded. Those goals — one at Athletic Club, a brace against Almeria, one each against Celta Vigo, Getafe and Girona, another brace against Osasuna, plus three in three UEFA Champions League games against Union Berlin, Napoli and Braga — are proof of concept.

Yet the goals don't tell the whole story, as Bellingham has brought so much more.

His all-round game has grown, week by week. He's the player with the most blocks in LaLiga (20, two ahead of Barca's Gavi). His importance, and his opponents' awareness of it, has made him the most fouled player in the league (30). His position has evolved as the team has learned to plug the gaps in Ancelotti's new 4-4-2, with Bellingham drifting to the left to form a devastating partnership with the team's other outstanding player, Vinícius Júnior.

Bellingham is already a leader, as vocal on the pitch as he is comfortable off it. He's been saying all the right things, quickly winning over a fanbase and Madrid media who've previously been sceptical about