Unarguably, Jude Bellingham is the most sought-after young talent in the world of football as we speak. The England international has been heavily linked to a move away from Dortmund this summer as elite clubs with the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City, and Real Madrid fighting for his signatures.
At the age of 19, Bellingham is one of the most proficient ballers in the Bundesliga. The Dortmund ace has managed to shape himself as one of the most complete midfielders in the game, capable of fulfilling nearly every possible role at the center of the park.
Having his shirt number retired at the age of 17 speaks volumes about the talent of the youngster. At the same time, Bellingham has so far successfully managed to dodge the hype surrounding his name getting to his head.
Just like his peers with the likes of Musiala, Gavi, and Camavinga, the 19-year-old lives a disciplined lifestyle. Bellingham avoids parties, stays away from drinking, and doesn’t have any tattoos.
However, Jude’s FIFA 22 character model had fans believing otherwise for the last part.
To attain more clarity on the topic, we need to roll back the calendar to the year 2021, when EA Sports had just released their second last rendition of the FIFA series in FIFA 22. It was the second FIFA game to feature the former Birmingham City midfielder and the first to add his body-scanned character model.
Bellingham was one of the highest-potential youngsters in the game and a common choice for gamers to add to their manager career mode club.
That said, if we pay close attention to the in-game model of the England international in FIFA 22, a black spot could be noticed around his neck. Though not the most highlighted attribute of Bellingham in the game, the black spot had fans confuse this to be a tattoo, making the situation confusing, as by then Jude had no spots or tattoos on his neck.
As it turns out, the supposed “tattoo” was not exactly ink, but a mole on Bellingham’s neck which the midfielder had removed after joining Dortmund.
“How come his character model feature the mole in FIFA 22 when Bellingham had his tattoo removed after joining Dortmund in 2020?” is the obvious question that comes to life.
Bellingham had a generic face in FIFA 21, and by the time EA Sports must have started to body-scan players for FIFA 22, the mole was nowhere to be seen on the Briton’s neck.
Well, here lies the only assumption that can be made of the situation at hand. Bellingham had the mole present on his neck until the youngster’s move to BVB. The only way EA Sports could’ve captured the spot while body-scanning was if they scanned the youngster for FIFA 21.
“But you just said his FIFA 21 character model had a generic face?” Yes, that’s correct. However, capturing face and body scans but not implementing them in the game is a thing EA Sports has practiced for a while now. Many Arsenal players, Ben White, for instance, were supposed to go through a character scan, yet their scanned faces weren’t featured in FIFA 21.
Knowing that Borussia Dortmund wasn’t rescanned for FIFA 22, it only makes sense for Bellingham to have a scanned face if he was previously scanned by EA Sports. Though EA Sports didn’t scan Jude in his Birmingham days, the only possible reasoning could be that he was scanned days/weeks after signing for Dortmund, and his scanned model was used by EA Sports a year later in FIFA 22.
The same black spot on his neck from FIFA 22 is nowhere to be found in FIFA 23, thus strengthening this theory.
Rumors suggesting that Liverpool have ruled out of the race to sign Bellingham, Man City, and Real Madrid remain the two most probable destinations for the youngster to arrive next. Without a doubt, the Jude Bellingham transfer saga will be the highlight of the summer transfer window.
