Jude Bellingham should not have won the 2023 Golden Boy award, claims Barcelona legend Hristo Stoichkov.
Striker supreme Stoichkov, who scored 108 goals in more than 200 games for Barcelona between 1995 and 2000, questioned what Real Madrid midfielder Bellingham had done to deserve the award. He says it should have gone to a Bayern Munich or Barcelona player instead.
However, Stoichkov does believe Bellingham has a brilliant future ahead of him, sharing which three legendary footballers he thinks the Birmingham City academy graduate is a mix of. He added: "The future is his."
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The 57-year-old was asked if Bellingham should have won the award, and he told SPORT: "No. I do not dispute the value of [Bellingham], he is one of the strongest talents in the world: he has a lot of class and a lot of brain. For me he is a mix between [Michael] Laudrup, Kaka and the first [Paul] Pogba. The future is his.
"He will fight with Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland for the next Ballon d'Or, but I would like to know what he won in 2023 between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid. Nothing.
“He did it for three months... [on scoring] And what success have all these goals brought to Real Madrid? You know well what my friend Mourinho would say about 'titles'.
“Do we want to talk about how the last Bundesliga ended? Borussia Dortmund had a two-point lead over Bayern with 90 minutes to go in the final [game] of the championship. They were playing at home against Mainz and the Bavarians were playing away in Cologne.
“What happened five minutes from the end? Tuchel brought on [Jamal] Musiala, who in the last minutes scored to make it 3-2 for Bayern while Borussia drew 2-2 at home and said goodbye to the title due to goal difference.
“Since Gavi, the current winner, was not eligible by regulation, I would have given the prize to Musiala or [Alejandro] Balde.”
