Champions League bold predictions: Jude Bellingham to come up clutch for Real Madrid; Barca back in business

A big week of Champions League football lies ahead of Europe. Given that the competition won’t return until early January, Matchday 6 might be the last we see of some clubs in their current form. It will also give those who happen to wobble to stew in a crisis of their own making. That couldn’t include Real Madrid, could it? The reigning champions are certainly in the lurch after three defeats from their first five matches and it is their meeting with Atalanta where we start this week’s look ahead:

Atalanta vs. Real Madrid: Bellingham comes up clutch

The league phase wasn’t supposed to go like this, right? Those eight byes into the round of 16 were always likely to be tightly contested by the best of the best in Europe but a team of Real Madrid’s quality would have expected to go into round six of this competition in much the same stage as Liverpool or Barcelona. A spot in the top 24 should already be in the bag and even with some of their trickier games front-loaded the holders would be there or thereabouts for the top eight.

Instead, the margins for error have shrunk quite dramatically. They are still there, four points from their three remaining games would likely be enough to reach the playoffs. The bye places are probably beyond reach anyway so Madrid’s main focus should be on avoiding humiliation, safe in the knowledge that they so often have the last laugh. It’s Salzburg at home and Brest away in the new year. Everything should be fine. It’s just if they lose to Atalanta that things get hairy.

The problem is, they really could lose to Atalanta. Madrid might have had the better of them in the UEFA Super Cup earlier this year but they were a different proposition entirely. One with centerbacks, plural. Gian Piero Gasperini’s attack might not be full of star names but it is one of Europe’s most deadly, averaging 1.66 non-penalty expected goals (npxG) per game in Serie A, where they have won nine straight. A multi-faceted attack, a defense that has given up the fewest xG in the Champions League so far, a home stadium where they hold a record of just one defeat from nine games in Europe, and a one goal loss to a Liverpool side they already held a three-goal aggregate lead over.

All the ingredients are there for a dramatic night for Madrid. Happily for them, they have rediscovered a player that delivers in the biggest moments. It was an act of monumental clumsiness to have misplaced Jude Bellingham in all the hubbub surrounding Kylian Mbappe but then again, finding one of the best young players in the world down the back of the Bernabeu sofa this month has been no bad thing. Five goals in his last five La Liga games has Bellingham back in the groove again, the chief beneficiary from Vinicius Junior’s absence as he drifts up closer to the center forwards, primed for the ball that bounces around the box for him to leather in.

Happily for Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti has been able to unlock a more attacking Bellingham without sacrificing his involvement in possession. Indeed bringing more of the 21-year-old’s touches infield from the left has got him just as involved in the attack while opening space for Mbappe and encouraging Bellingham to be a bit more forward-thinking. His xG, xA, shots, progressive passes and progressive carries are all up.

The man himself might have a different explanation for why that is. Speaking after the first goal in his La Liga streak, Bellingham said, “I’m doing different things in different parts of the pitch. It’s one of those things, I’ll do anything for the team. Maybe I’ve done a bit too much and been a little bit too nice. From now on I think I’ll get a feeling for it and I’ll try to carry on but if not I’ll keep trying to help the team in any way I can.”

For all his great technical qualities, there is something quite vibey about Bellingham. He senses the moments and lives for them: the last seconds of Clasicos, the bicycle kicks in do-or-die time at the Euros. If Madrid need him on Tuesday, he’ll deliver.

Don’t miss CBS Sports Golazo Network’s Morning Footy, now in podcast form! Our crew brings you all the news, views, highlights and laughs you need to follow the Beautiful Game in every corner of the globe, every Monday-Friday all year long.

Arsenal vs. Monaco: Martinelli falters

A caveat to this talking point from the very outset: it is not even a given that Gabriel Martinelli is in the XI when Arsenal face Monaco on Wednesday night. If it is that is probably down to Leandro Trossard having failed to impress Mikel Arteta against Fulham. 

There have been times since the Belgian’s arrival in January 2023 where Arsenal have found themselves in a virtuous cycle of rotation: Trossard excels so Martinelli flies out of the traps when he gets minutes and then Trossard comes back into the game as a sub, gets all angry and scores a massive goal, etc etc. Now? Rather the opposite, neither left winger is giving Arteta quite what he wants. That wouldn’t be different if Bukayo Saka’s last-gasp goal off a Martinelli cross on Sunday had counted. Both are faltering but with the young Brazilian it is all the more frustrating to see.

Martinelli was, is and always will be a triumph of recruitment for Arsenal, plucked from lower-tier Brazilian football by Francis Cagigao and his team, forged into a young star who will almost certainly play his 200th game for the Gunners long before he turns 24. That’s a home run signing even if he doesn’t play a minute and so it seems churlish to suggest he isn’t quite developing into the player he looked like being in 2022-23. It wouldn’t be wrong though. That year it was 15 goals and six assists in 46 games, since then 12 and eight in 64. Some of that World Cup year can be put down to hot finishing but Arteta would have hoped that the underlying numbers might swing upwards over the past two years.

At best, they have flatlined. His npxG was 0.3 in each of the last two seasons, now it is at 0.26, though the fact that his shot volume per 90 is down 39 percent does at least point to him taking better shots. Similarly, he is assisting more but his chances created and xA are down. 

Now there are all sorts of extenuating circumstances to explain why Martinelli isn’t looking like the player he was threatening to be. Some of his best form in an Arsenal shirt has been when he has had a center forward drifting across to combine with him, particularly peak Gabriel Jesus, in a similar way to how Bukayo Saka gets Martin Odegaard to bounce ideas off. Oleksandr Zinchenko’s defensive struggles mean that the left flank has been more turbulent than the right in the aggregate while even Arteta seems unsure whether Declan Rice, Mikel Merino or A N Other should be the post-Granit Xhaka left eight. That’s an environment as conducive as any in the Arsenal squad.

That seems to drive a cycle with the youngster. Once his surety of surroundings was reflected in play that was all about certainty of purpose. Martinelli knows where his teammates are and what he can do best in any circumstance. Now his form is typified by what he made of this position against Manchester United.

There are options. Martinelli can go at Harry Maguire’s left side if he wants the best angle to shoot. He could fly down the byline, trusting that one of Odegaard or Kai Havertz will get open for the cutback. It is as if he is caught in decision paralysis. In the end, he does nothing at all really, slowing down enough that he has manufactured a difficult shooting opportunity where he tries to fire the ball through Maguire’s legs. A prime position like this results in too easy a save for Andre Onana. The Martinelli of old might have spurned this position but he would have done so more decisively.

He might become that player again. After all, he’s 23. Progression isn’t a straight line and development can trough without a career being over. His npxG + xA is still the sort that most other wingers in Europe’s top five leagues would be heralded for. Unless Khvicha Kvaratskhelia or Vinicius Junior give Arteta a call and say they quite fancy life in north London, you would be unwise to rush Martinelli down the depth chart. Even when the time does come to upgrade on the left flank, the young Brazilian might just become a devastating closer. In the short term, while his surroundings are so imperfect, Arsenal will just have to accept him for his struggles.

Borussia Dortmund vs. Barcelona: Flick gets back in the groove

Two wins in their last six and there is a sense that Barcelona might be faltering in La Liga at least. Has the hyper-high line of Hansi Flick been found out? It’s probably not quite that radical but it is no great surprise that in the winter months, as game loads build in their legs, players can’t press with the same aggression they managed in September and October. That is how you end up conceding goals like they did against Las Palmas, insufficiently pressured balls over the top that free a striker to get into a prime shooting position.

What Barcelona could really do with is running into a team who are going to attack this game in the same way they are, just with lesser quality. Enter Borussia Dortmund, whose results in the Champions League are just as deceptive this season as they were last. This is an opponent that is there to be got at even if they do have impressive young weapons such as Jamie Gittens. It should be just the sort of game Flick et al need to get back on the right path.