'Insanely good' Jude Bellingham is a shining star for Real Madrid and England

There was a moment, during Real Madrid’s pre-season when the wise old heads at the most glamorous of clubs turned to one another with a knowing glance. There was an approving nod from Toni Kroos, a clap of the gloves from Thibaut Courtois. They were admiring the new signing, Jude Bellingham.

“Almost as soon as he first started practice with us, we, the veterans, looked at each other and thought, ‘Wow, this guy knows what he’s doing'," recalled Dani Carvajal, the toughest of Madrid’s senior professionals.

As Bellingham continues to make his awe-inspiring introduction to Spanish football, which he became part of early in the summer in exchange for the €100 million-plus transfer fee paid by Madrid to Borussia Dortmund, Carvajal finds himself adding new items to the catalogue of the player's virtues, no longer surprised that within the precocious 20 year-old’s vast portfolio are gifts he had not expected.

“What you don’t see at first is how quick he is,” explained Carvajal, the Madrid captain for most of an extraordinary first month of the season for the English midfield phenomenon. “Or that technically he’s insanely good.” What Bellingham’s live Spanish audiences have already seen is an exemplary adaptation to a new league, to a grand institution that has in the past intimidated far more worldly stars than Bellingham when they first arrived at the Bernabeu.

Bellingham has played four matches for Madrid so far. He has been on the scoresheet in every one of them – twice at Almeria, where he also set up the other goal in a 3-1 win – and added another man-of-the-match display on Tuesday, for England against Scotland in Glasgow.

That was not a competitive fixture, but a celebration of the 150th anniversary of supposedly