There was a time when Jude Bellingham would rest his head on Erling Haaland’s chest during a corner kick and nobody thought anything of it. They were teammates at Borussia Dortmund, sent each other good-luck messages, and even recorded a Valentine’s Day video together in 2022. 🥹
Dortmund reposted that same video this week on TikTok, and it already has more than 200,000 likes. Except now there’s one small detail: Bellingham plays for England, Haaland for Norway, and on Saturday, July 11 in Miami they face off for a spot in the 2026 World Cup semifinals.
Fans are not taking it calmly. They’re already comparing the two to the protagonists of “Heated Rivalry”, that series about rival hockey players with a lot of tension in the mix, and they even came up with a name for the phenomenon: “cleated rivalry”. Haaland is almost 30 centimeters taller than Bellingham, so in the memes they’ve already dubbed him his bodyguard. On Friday they’re rivals. The rest of the year, who knows. 😅⚽
