Jude Bellingham on ‘horrible’ Real Madrid loss – ‘We have a lot of talent, but don’t do the basic things’ | OneFootball

Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham looked lost for words after his side fell to a 4-2 defeat to Benfica on Wednesday night in the Champions League. The result sees Los Blancos drop into the play-off round, and consequently, they will have two more games in February.

It was a chastening result and performance, which manager Alvaro Arbeloa took responsibility for. In Spain there was fierce criticism, but Kylian Mbappe was just as harsh with his own teammates, calling their performance ’embarassing’.

Jude Bellingham – ‘It’s horrible to lose like this’

A demoralised Bellingham spoke to CBS Golazo after the match in Lisbon, devoid of positives or platitudes.

“It’s horrible to lose like this, in this manner. Running out of words for these games now, we’ll have to review it tomorrow and look at the goals we conceded and things like that but yeah… Not much to say right now, it’s still a bit raw. Don’t know what to think, but I don’t know.”

‘We don’t do the basics well’ – Bellingham

The England international was asked whether one of the reasons behind their defeat was the different levels of intensity between the two sides.

“Yeah, 100%, that’s a factor. They won all the duels, ran harder, pressed better, landed on second balls, the basic things that we don’t do well. We have so much talent, and players that can produce magic out of nowhere, but if you don’t do the basic things, you’re going to get punished.”

“But what can we do? We’re here now, we’ve found ourselves in this position, and you can moan, but we’re not in the top eight. We have to approach the games as if they were the same intensity as a quarter-final, we have to carry on now.”

Image via Jose Manuel Alvarez Rey/Getty Images

Dean Huijsen: ‘Benfica were better than us’

Meanwhile teammate Dean Huijsen seemed similarly dispondent after the game, admitting Benfica were the better side.

“I think the whole game, we have to be honest, Benfica were better than us, we didn’t play a good game. I think that the goalkeeper scores for them, it’s written [in the script]. But they deserved to win, and we have to work on ourselves.”

“Yes, we knew. We had a phone on the bench, so we were checking the scores the whole time. And I think Sporting scored, and we knew we were 9th. Now we have to win these two games, and prepare as well as possible. We need to work on ourselves.”