Dortmund v Real Madrid: Back-up stars Brahim and Guller helping build Los Blancos dynasty

At the outset of a season that could, at Wembley Stadium on Saturday, conclude with Real Madrid claiming their second Liga and European Cup double in three years, the Spanish club talked boldly about transition, of a squad in rejuvenation. Their summer recruitment strategy spelt it out: it focused on generational talent, the kind of footballer who would be a figurehead, for club and country, for a decade to come.

But enough about Jude Bellingham, the English midfielder, who at 20, has just been named the Spanish league’s Footballer the Year.

How about the Turkish kid who, in the run-in to Real’s securing the domestic title, scored five times in four games? Or Brahim Diaz, the creative spark whose goals eased Madrid through both the group stage and the last-16 phase of the Champions League and who returned the best ratio of assists per minute in the triumphant Liga campaign of all Madrid’s attacking players?

By no means is Bellingham the sole new arrival around whom a European Cup winner’s medal, should Borussia Dortmund be defeated in London on Saturday evening, will look like a dazzling endorsement of shrewd transfer business and the firm promise of an enduring Madrid dynasty.

The Turkish teenager, Arda Guler, who joined at the same time, is already regarded with some awe by older, worldlier colleagues for the technique and audacity he shows, day in day out, on the training pitch.

The frustration for Guler is opportunities to transfer all that to match-day action have been limited. But he’ll only turn 20 in February and acknowledges he was bought, from Fenerbahce, for his long-term potential. “He doesn’t need to rush at his age,” said Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti.

“I came here knowing it might be the case I