Real Madrid x Bayern Munich pits childhood friends in the Champions League < In Attack

After enjoying the glory days of England’s youth teams, Jamal Musiala and Jude Bellingham separated, but the two will meet again this Wednesday (8) to try to fulfill a childhood dream: playing in the Champions League final, in Wembley.

They are only twenty years old, but Bellingham and Musiala are already important players at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich respectively.

Last season, it was Musiala who became a Bayern legend by scoring the goal that won his team the Bundesliga in the 88th minute of the last round, while this season Bellingham led the Merengues to win LaLiga.

And the result of the Champions League semi-final between these two giants of European football falls in part on the shoulders of these two players, true jewels cut in the facilities of St George’s Park, home to English football stars.

Together in the England youth teams

“We have always dreamed of a game like this”, said Musiala, in an interview with the Madrid sports newspaper Marca, before the first leg at the Allianz Arena (2-2), in which he shone a little more than his friend Jude, with emphasis on the penalty he conceded resulted in Bayern’s second goal, scored by Harry Kane.

Born in Stuttgart to a Nigerian father and German mother, Musiala discovered football in Fulda, central Germany, before leaving for England at the age of seven, when his mother, Carolin, settled in Southampton to study.

He joined Chelsea’s youth team when, at the same time, Jude Bellingham, just four months younger than him (one was born on February 26, 2003, the other on June 29), was beginning to shine at Birmingham.

Their talent quickly became visible and they soon found themselves sharing a room at the England youth team camps, where their friendship was born.

Return to Germany after Brexit

However, Brexit separated the fates of the two players. Musiala’s mother decided to return to Germany in 2019, and Bayern Munich took the opportunity to sign the skilled dribbler, capable of impressive runs.

“He is a player that we like to watch, that we go to the stadium for, that I would go to the stadium for. It’s good to see how technically strong he is, his dribbling ability, his agility, he really is a talent that you rarely see,” his Bayern teammate, France international Kingsley Coman, recently said on Téléfoot program on French television.

After his return to Germany, Musiala opted for the ‘Mannschaft’ and played his first match on March 25, 2021 against Iceland in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, while Bellingham arrived a little earlier in the English team, in a friendly against Ireland on November 12, 2020. The two met again in the Bundesliga on the occasion of the ‘Klassiker’, as Bellingham rejected the mighty Premier League to sign for Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2020.

Musiala won a Champions League, but without playing

Injured in the last two games of BVB’s 2022-2023 season, Bellingham’s absence weighed on Dortmund’s unfavorable result, which finished second behind Bayern, surpassed only by goal difference.

At the age of 19, Bellingham signed a contract with Real Madrid for 103 million euros (around R$562 million at the current price), plus bonuses based on the performance of the player and the club that reach 30% of that amount.

The tenth clash between the two friends, on Wednesday night, at the Santiago Bernabéu, will decide which of the two will fulfill their childhood dream of playing in the Champions League final, at Wembley, on June 1st.

Present in the Bayern team in the round of 16 and quarter-finals of the Champions League in 2020, Musiala has a slight advantage as he already has a Champions League title under his belt, although he did not play a single minute of the competition in 2020.