Real Madrid News
Official: Real Madrid ace Jude Bellingham wins the Golden Boy 2023 Award
It is official. Real Madrid rising star Jude Bellingham has won the Golden Boy Award for the year 2023.
The 20-year-old England international has already pocketed the Kopa Trophy at the Ballon d’Or ceremony earlier this year.
Now, he has added another prestigious honour to his individual collection with the Golden Boy Award being awarded to him.
Bellingham finished with a total of 485 points out of a maximum of 500, with 97% of the votes, showing how clear he was of the competition.
The prize is more than well-deserved for Bellingham after the sensational year he has had first at Borussia Dortmund and then with Real Madrid.
JUDE BELLINGHAM is Golden Boy Absolute Best! @realmadrid #Goldenboy #Goldenboy2023 #football pic.twitter.com/VXIMAjlDED
— Golden Boy (@GoldenBoyAwards) November 17, 2023
The midfield sensation almost led the Black and Yellows to the Bundesliga title last season before securing a mega-money move to Real Madrid in the summer window.
Since joining the Merengues, Bellingham has easily been among the best in the game over the past few months, leading Real Madrid’s charge on multiple fronts.
In 14 games this season, the Englishman has scored 13 goals and set up three more, enjoying a dream start to life in the Spanish capital.
Having won the Golden Boy and the Kopa Trophy this year, Bellingham will now set his sights on the big prize, the Ballon d’Or in the coming years, for which he will need to help Real Madrid to great success.
Meanwhile, Real Madrid Femenino’s Linda Caicedo went on to win the Golden Girl Absolute Best award.
Real Madrid’s main goal heading into the summer transfer window was to wrap up the signing of Jude Bellingham amid massive interest from Premier League giants such as Liverpool, Manchester City, and Chelsea.
Pep Guardiola’s City, especially, were ready to match and increase any salary Madrid offered, and were going strongly into the bidding war.
Eventually, Bellingham decided to join Madrid after they reached an agreement with Borussia Dortmund for €3 million.
However, following this, los blancos had to improvise a fair bit as Karim Benzema decided to leave the club to join Al-Ittihad on a free transfer. They were expecting him to continue for another season, at least, and it stumped their plans in the market.
In the next few weeks, Madrid chased forwards, and ended up signing Joselu, Brahim Diaz, and a certain Arda Guler, who was close to Barcelona before eventually ending up at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Unfortunately for Madrid, he is yet to play a single minute for the club after picking up a serious injury in pre-season. Despite being on the bench for a couple of games, Guler suffered a relapse in training, and was sidelined again.
Now, reports from Yagiz Sabuncuoglu say that the Turkish international is close to returning to team training.
Guler has slowly, but surely, been recovering from his injury, and could take to the pitch for his first minutes with the club in the next few weeks as Madrid look for solutions after a month full of injuries.
With Vinicius Jr, Eduardo Camavinga, Aurelien Tchouameni, Eder Militao, and Thibaut Courtois all out until early 2024, Madrid have relied on Castilla for reinforcements, but could do with Guler’s services in their forward line.
That said, Carlo Ancelotti and co. are expected to be extremely cautious when it comes to the Turkish international. The slightest spell of poor man-management here could make or break the youngster’s career.
