Inside Man City's Jude Bellingham pursuit and Guardiola's bid to woo Madrid star

Only the lure of the mighty Real Madrid prevented Manchester City from signing Jude Bellingham.

City wanted to sign Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund, with boss Pep Guardiola speaking personally with the England midfielder in a bid to convince him to join them. Manchester United had tried to entice Bellingham to join them three years earlier, in 2020 when the midfielder was at Birmingham.

Legendary former United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was brought in to give Bellingham - then 17 - a tour of the club's training ground, but their efforts were in vain, as he opted to join Dortmund that summer for £25million. City's charm offensive to land Bellingham began before his conversation with Guardiola, when he was presented with a signed Erling Haaland shirt last season when Dortmund faced the Blues in the Champions League group stage.

Haaland had made the move from Dortmund to City the summer before and the Premier League champions pulled out all the stops in a bid to persuade Bellingham to make the same switch and reunite with his former team-mate. Bellingham, who scored at the Etihad Stadium in a 2-1 defeat for Dortmund, was invited into the City dressing-room and presented with the shirt, but the wooing was ultimately futile, with the 20-year-old opting to join the 14-time European champions in a £115m deal.

That decision has been fully vindicated, with Bellingham enjoying a formidable debut season in the Spanish capital, with 20 goals and 10 assists to his name from an advanced midfield role, operating ostensibly as a No.10. With Real eight points clear in La Liga, Bellingham is set to win his first league title in the coming weeks and on Tuesday he can show City and Guardiola what they missed out on when they meet in the Champions League quarter-final stage at the Bernabeu.

Last season, at the semi-final stage, City crushed Real 4-0 at the Etihad after a 1-1 draw in Madrid, avenging their agonising exit from the previous season, when they scored twice in added time at the same stage, to take the tie into extra-time, Karim Benzema sealing the win from the penalty spot.

The two sides meet for the third successive season, with Real looking to Bellingham to help them take revenge for last season's humiliating exit and knock the holders and Treble winners out of the competition. That would be the sweetest way for Bellingham to underline why he made the right decision in choosing Madrid over Manchester.