Jude Bellingham has claimed that he ‘couldn’t sleep’ after losing to Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold at table tennis.
Bellingham and Alexander-Arnold have been spotted spending a lot of time together during England’s World Cup camp. And now speaking to the England Twitter page, Jude has opened up on their friendship.
“Me and Trent are just super competitive, always going against each other in little games,” said the 19-year-old. “We played table tennis the other day, I beat him once, he wants to run it back, he beat me and it’s 1-1 and I’m like ‘run it back!'”
“We ended up playing like five games or something and I think I just lost actually. I wanted to keep going and he wanted to go bed. I couldn’t sleep that night.
“We just have that run it back mentality, it’s always going to happen, you’re not going to win every game, so when you do lose you just want it back straight away.”
Don’t upset him too much, Trent. You know the mission!
Bellingham shows his winners mentality
As well as the little nuggets of information about his and Trent’s burgeoning friendship, it’s good to get an insight into Bellingham’s mentality, too.
With Liverpool trying to win the race to sign him, this will be music to Jurgen Klopp’s ears.
The teenager obviously has an incredibly strong mentality. It goes without saying really, but it’s the kind of attitude that would make him fit in perfectly at Liverpool.
It’s also the kind of mentality that has led to him captaining Borussia Dortmund at just nineteen.
Without getting too ahead of ourselves, you really can see Bellingham as the perfect successor to Jordan Henderson’s armband at Liverpool.
Of course, that will to win is something that should be present in all top-level athletes. But to hear of it in someone so young is quite special.
Just like our Trent, Jude is a generational talent. Having them down Liverpool’s right side, along with Mohamed Salah is a frightening prospect. Maybe one day.
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