As the final whistle sounded in Wembley last night Real Madrid players rushed to celebrate a record-extending 15th European title, there was only one place Jude Bellingham wanted to look.
Up in the stands his family revelled in the atmosphere as the boy from Stourbridge, who just five years ago was playing in the youth leagues, won the most coveted trophy in club football.
It was the culmination of year’s of hard work, not just from Jude – whose rise in the world of the football has come so quickly it’s scarcely believable – but also his devoted parents, Mark and Denise.
The pair gave up their evenings and weekends shuttling Jude and his younger brother Jobe to training for years, and as their careers have taken off – the younger Bellingham plays for Sunderland – have divided their lives for their boys.
Denise, who Jude calls his ‘queen’, has followed her son around Europe – first to Germany when he was signed by Borussia Dortmund, whose hearts he helped break in the final on Saturday, and then to Madrid after joining one of the biggest clubs in the world.
By comparison, her husband Mark, who was a sergeant at West Midlands Police and a prolific striker in non-league football, stayed in Birmingham as Jobe continued his education.
It was a joint decision, which has since left the married couple thousands of miles apart and needing to fly for hours just to be in the same time zone as each other.
While many young men would be keen to put some distance between themselves and their parents, Jude has been open about the ‘massive’ benefits having his mother close at hand has had on him.
At his Madrid unveiling he revealed: ‘The role my mum is playing is massive. It is probably the biggest role of anyone, more than my coaches and managers, to be honest.’
Denise, who works in human resources, manages her son’s financial affairs, allowing Jude to focus on football and helping him avoid the trappings that can ensnare young stars.
The pair share a flat together in the exclusive La Finca neighbourhood in the west of Madrid, where properties fetch about £11million – she even makes his bed and drives him to training sometimes.
Acting as a moderating influence on her son as he continues to fly high with the biggest names in the sport, Denise is there to ‘keep everything neutral’, according to Jude.
‘Without my mum, sometimes I’d get too low with the lows or too high with the highs and I stay pretty humble because I’ve got her around.
‘It’s also great to have her there because she’s a great laugh as well. We get on so well and we’re always doing stuff together.’
Following his move to Madrid a pair of photos showed just how far they had come.
In the first, a young Jude can be seen smiling with Denise leaning over him at St Andrew’s stadium, presumably after he started his journey at the Birmingham City academy where he got his big break in football.
In the second, Jude towered over his mother as the pair smile in the standards at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, hugging each other after Real Madrid sealed the La Liga title last month.
The physical divide between the family was put into focus last year, when Denise, 55, was seen strolling through Madrid alongside her son as he was mobbed by selfie and autograph hunters.
She waited patiently as her son, tipped to be the next England captain, smiled his way through the crowd, signing as many autographs as he could.
But around 48 hours later Mrs Bellingham had flown 1,000 miles north to celebrate her birthday with her husband and Jobe who posted a photo of her in Newcastle steak restaurant Gaucho holding a lunch menu.
Jobe wrote above: ‘Happy birthday Mom’ and inserted a face emoji with hearts as the eyes, a second heart emoji and one of a gold crown with precious stones.
The sacrifices the Bellinghams’ have made for their sons have not gone unnoticed by Jude and Jobe, with Jude expressing his gratitude after the match last night.
Speaking to TNT Sports, the star midfielder revealed that seeing his family in the stands had pushed him to the verge of tears.
‘I was alright until I was up in my mum’s and dad’s face… and my little brother who I’m trying to be a role model for,’ he said.
‘The amount of nights where they [his parents] could be at home at 7pm but instead they’re doing trips at 11, 12 at night to take me to football.
‘I can’t have dreamed it much better than this. I just can’t believe it.’
The family emerged onto the pitch long after the final whistle in a touching reunion, when Denise was afforded the opportunity to take a photo with Jose Mourinho.
Poking fun at his mother, Jude joked with the manager that Denise had ‘fancied you for years’, another sign of the close-knit relationship the pair have.
Mourinho himself was impressed not just with Jude, but with his parents, telling TNT Sports: ‘Special player, special family. To see that family, the way they are there, they are not looking for cameras, they are not looking for the VIP seats, they are just there to support their kid in the most humble way.
‘For me, it’s really beautiful. Family, we play for them, especially in these moments, we play for them. To have mum, my kids, my father, my wife, at the finals, we play for them. We play for the people that love us and support us.’
It is a team effort – his father Mark encourage Jude to take regular German language lessons when he was playing for Borussia Dortmund and also personally brokered the deal with Real Madrid.
Although Jude admitted he later grew to idolise the likes of Wayne Rooney, it was his dad’s exploits on the pitch in non-league that made him his first footballing hero.
Mark scored more than 700 goals in about 900 appearances, making him something of an English non-league Pelé.
He juggled stints at clubs including Leamington, Stourbridge and Sutton Coldfield Town with his day job with West Midlands Police.
Mark hung up his boots at the age of 41 in 2017 and is now believed to have retired from the police. He declines to discuss his sons’ achievements.
He is a Southend United supporter and Jude’s first football matches as a boy were with his father to see the Essex team.
Jude told The Guardian in 2020 how his mother took him to watch his father play.
He said then: ‘It’s where I started to get that love for football – I think you can see in the way I play that I’ve watched the game from a young age.
‘That non-league style of toughness and being gritty when you need to be, I do think that comes from watching my dad play – even though he never tackled!’
Speaking about his father to the FA in an interview, Jude also said: ‘We talk about footballing heroes, and my dad was like my first.
‘When you go and watch him play every week in non-league, you know it’s not the Premier League or anything, but seeing the way that he played and the atmosphere, it made me fall in love with football so he was probably my first hero.
‘After the first few times of going, I’d start to pay a bit more attention to the games and stuff, the atmosphere and he’s scoring goals so you see him celebrating and stuff like that – you want that to be me.
‘Growing up, he’d always give me tips on what I could do and now it gets to a certain age and it sort of flips and that’s brilliant because we have that sort of relationship like father and son and then as I got older, like coach and player.’
His parents have acted as a grounding force for the midfield star while his early career has rocketed off to the heights of world football.
In 2020, Jude signed for Borussia Dortmund for £22.5million following a breakout season with Championship and boyhood side Birmingham City.
Already loved so much by the Birmingham club and the wider city, he had his shirt number 22 retired despite just playing 44 games for the club in a fledgling career.
But Birmingham’s love and admiration for him is understandable after standing out as one of England’s best players in last year’s World Cup.
Remarkably a bridge in Birmingham is even set to be named after the young star.
His performances after moving to Germany continued to catch the attention of the world’s top clubs, with Real Madrid coming calling last summer after three years in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Such was the Spanish club’s desire to get their man, that they stumped up £113million to bring him from Germany to Madrid.
The 20-year-old has scored 23 goals and assisted 11 in 42 appearances so far across all competitions, and is one of the favourites to win this year’s Ballon d’Or.
And while Jude had a mixed performance compared to his usually high standards last night, he recorded a crucial assist by slotting Vinicius through for the second goal.
He will now jet back to Madrid for the club’s raucous parade before enjoying some much-deserved downtime ahead of joining up with England’s squad on June 8.
It would be no surprise if he made use of the opportunity to spend it with his parents and brother, reuniting their family once more.