Jude Bellingham Real Madrid: Is He the World's Best Midfielder? Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid has 45 goals in 132 games. But is he the world's best midfielder in 2026? The stats tell a more complex story than most people admit.
Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid has produced one of the most talked-about careers in modern football, and he is still only 22 years old. Since arriving at the Bernabeu for €103 million in the summer of 2023, he has registered 45 goals and 29 assists in 132 appearances for the club, numbers that most pure forwards would be satisfied with, let alone a box-to-box midfielder. But the "world's best midfielder" debate is more layered than the headline figures suggest. His debut season was remarkable by any standard. The two seasons that followed it were not. And right now, in the middle of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the conversation is very much still open.
The Debut Season That Started Everything
If you want to understand why the debate exists at all, go back to 2023/24. In his very first campaign at Madrid, Bellingham led the club in La Liga scoring with 23 goals and 13 assists. Not in goals among midfielders. In goals among the entire squad. A central midfielder outscoring Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo, and whoever else Madrid put on the pitch. That alone made it one of the most extraordinary debut seasons any midfielder had produced in the modern era of the sport.
Madrid won La Liga and the Champions League. Bellingham was voted La Liga Player of the Season. He was included in the FIFPRO World 11 that year and the two years that followed (2023, 2024 and 2025). He finished third in the Ballon d'Or and FIFA The Best awards in 2024. In La Liga alone that debut season, he became the first Real Madrid player to score in six consecutive matches since Karim Benzema in 2016.
At his peak in 2023/24, the "world's best midfielder" claim was not just defensible. It was hard to argue against.
- 23 goals and 13 assists in 2023/24 La Liga (club-leading scorer as a midfielder)
- La Liga title and Champions League won in that debut campaign
- La Liga Player of the Season 2023/24
- FIFPRO World 11 inclusion: three consecutive years (2023, 2024, 2025)
- Transfer fee: €103 million from Borussia Dortmund in 2023
What the Numbers Look Like After Three Seasons
The career total at Real Madrid is genuinely impressive in isolation. According to Squawka's database, Bellingham has scored 45 goals from an expected-goals figure of just 30.8, a significant overperformance that marks him as a clinical finisher from midfield rather than a volume striker benefiting from easy chances. He has also created 198 chances and 27 big chances across his 132 appearances, and logged 521 touches inside the opposition box. Eight of his 45 goals have been headers, showing how often he actively attacks the penalty area.
But the season-by-season picture is where things become more honest.
Season breakdown, all competitions:
- 2023/24: 23 goals and 13 assists (La Liga alone) — extraordinary
- 2024/25: 9 goals and 6 assists across all competitions — significant dip
- 2025/26: 8 goals and 5 assists across 40 appearances (per Real Madrid official statistics)
In La Liga specifically for 2025/26, FootyStats and FotMob both record 6 goals and 4 assists in 28 matches. His non-penalty expected goals total sits at 7.93 for the league season, placing him in the top 88th percentile of La Liga players, and his FotMob average match rating across the campaign was 7.53. He is third in Real Madrid's squad scoring charts for the league, which tells its own story about how the team's attacking hierarchy has shifted.
The explanation for the dip after season one is not complicated. A shoulder injury required surgery before the 2024/25 season. The arrival of Kylian Mbappe fundamentally restructured Real Madrid's attack and reduced Bellingham's licence to play as a goal-scoring No.10. He became, in the words of Goal.com's analysis, more of a ball-carrying midfielder than an attacking presence. The decisive moments that defined 2023/24 became rarer. His England form reflected the same problem: he had not scored for the national team from October 2024 right up until the opening game of the 2026 World Cup.
The World Cup Moment That Reopened the Debate
Against Croatia on June 17 in Dallas, England won 4-2. Bellingham started and scored the decisive third goal, collecting a pass two minutes into the second half and finishing low across the goalkeeper to break a 2-2 deadlock. It was the kind of decisive, big-game contribution that his detractors had been waiting to see again.
There had been genuine doubt about whether he would even start. England manager Thomas Tuchel had made clear through qualifying that competition for the No.10 role between Bellingham and Aston Villa's Morgan Rogers was real. Rogers is a natural playmaker in that position, while Bellingham's most productive role under Ancelotti's system at Madrid had drifted further from the goalmouth. Tuchel picked Bellingham. He delivered.
Whether that one goal reopens or settles the "world's best midfielder" argument depends on what the rest of the World Cup produces. England are among the favourites for the tournament. If Bellingham performs across six or seven matches the way he did for his first Madrid season, no serious person will argue against him.
The Honest Verdict on the "Best Midfielder" Question
For a few months in 2023/24, Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid was very likely the best midfielder on the planet. The output was that good. What followed was not a collapse, but it was a sustained period where the gap between him and the very elite closed significantly, and where injuries and a restructured team reduced his impact in the most decisive moments.
In 2026 he is still only 22 years old, still a FIFPRO World 11 player, and still capable of producing the moments that make the debate worth having. His career goal tally of 45 in 132 Real Madrid games from midfield remains almost without parallel for a player his age at a club of that level.
But right now, in June 2026, the honest answer is that he is one of the world's best midfielders and potentially the best when everything aligns. The question of whether he has truly become the world's best, consistently and undeniably, is one that the next twelve months will do more to answer than the last three seasons combined.
Conclusion
Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid has given us one debut season that belongs among the all-time great individual campaigns from a midfielder, two seasons of very good but noticeably quieter football, and now a World Cup that feels like a genuine defining moment. The talent was never in question. The consistency over a sustained period is what the debate has always really been about. If England go deep in the 2026 World Cup with Bellingham as their driving force, this conversation changes permanently. If they exit early, it stays complicated.
Where do you stand: is Bellingham already the world's best midfielder, or does he still have something left to prove? Drop your take below.
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