Out of the ordinary, Kane and Bellingham break the stigma

Jude Bellingham made history on Sunday with Real Madrid. He returned to Carlo Ancelotti's starting XI after briefly missing out due to a dislocated left shoulder and, to no one's surprise this season, he scored again. The goal against Cádiz was his fourteenth goal in 15 games with the white club, a record never before seen in the white house. No Madrid legend, even of the stature of Cristiano Ronaldo and Alfredo di Stéfano, was capable of maintaining such a pace at the time. The Portuguese and the Spanish-Argentine stayed at the 13-point mark.

At the same time, another great British figure is shining with his own light. Harry Kane is the top scorer in the Bundesliga, and although Bayern Munich is not the leader of the category, the Englishman is making a unique scoring start in Europe. With 18 points, he beats Serhou Guirassy, the great revelation in Germany thanks to the also surprising Stuttgart, and breaks the mark of the third contender, Loïs Openda. He emulates Jude's feat, and with those dozen and a half goals he is the first player in the history of the German first division to reach that number in the first 12 games.

Bellingham and Kane have two things in common, they are English and have dared to emigrate outside of England, with resounding success. Furthermore, the story is not new for the former, he left in 2020 for Borussia Dortmund when he was barely 17 years old. At the Westfalenstadion he had three top-level seasons, maturing in the Champions League and competing for the first time with world-class footballers.

That of Jude and Harry is a case that shatters the stigma that the British cannot succeed outside the islands, their comfort zone. Both lead the league's scoring table, and in particular the Bavarian team's striker scored the goal against Cologne that makes him the top scorer of the season and of the year 2023. There are 49 goals that make him share the throne of gunners with Erling Haaland, beating Cristiano Ronaldo by just one digit. They are, without a doubt, the flag of their respective new teams, and in a matter of months they have had overwhelming influence and weight in the locker room.

They were not all the same

And not all of them have proven to be the same nor have they known how to adapt to a football different from English, characterized by its frenetic pace and giving importance to the physical aspect. The clearest example is Michael Owen, who in 2001 received the Ballon d'Or for his performance at Liverpool, landed in Madrid as one of the best center forwards on the planet, and a year later took a plane back to England to land in Newcastle. Or Paul Gascoigne, who emigrated to Italy to play for Lazio but injuries and constant controversies off the field prevented him from shining.