Jude Bellingham (L) of Real Madrid controls the ball in the La Liga game against Celta de Vigo at Estadio Balaidos in Vigo, Spain, October 19, 2024. /CFP
Real Madrid will play Borussia Dortmund in Tuesday's UEFA Champions League game at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid, Spain. The La Liga side's star midfielder Jude Bellingham will meet his former teammates as he has been dealing with a nine-game scoring drought this season.
Bellingham's first season with Real in 2023-24 ended with an amazing combination of 23 goals and 13 assists in all competitions. By contrast, he hasn't found the net yet so far this season and delivered no more than two assists.
"We're satisfied with his work, I'm very satisfied," Real's coach Carlo Ancelotti said at a press conference on Monday. "He works a lot, he's always present, he competes, he fights, he sacrifices himself. It's true he hasn't scored the goals he scored last year, but the surprise isn't this year, the surprise was last year, when he scored lots of goals which nobody expected and helped us a lot. The problem this year isn't that we're lacking Bellingham's goals."
"We've always scored goals, and we'll always score, because we have talented players up front. For us, in this moment, the work he's doing is more important than the goals the scored last year," Ancelotti added.
Carlo Ancelotti, coach of Real Madrid, attends a press conference in Madrid, Spain, October 21, 2024. /CFP
The Italian coach placed his hopes for goals on Kylian Mbappe, who got eight goals and one assist in 12 games after a slow start.
"I want Mbappe to score goals, I prefer he scores rather than pressing," Ancelotti noted. "The center-forward's role hasn't changed, I ask the same of him that I asked of (former Real striker player) Karim Benzema. Mbappe needs to position himself well and be smart every time we recover the ball to make a quick transition."