Jude Bellingham is expected to return to training with Real Madrid over the next week or so as preparations ramp up for the next season. The midfielder is currently on vacation after leading England to the 2026 FIFA World Cup semi-final during the summer.
Madrid have already kicked off their pre-season affairs with a friendly against Fiorentina and are slated to take on Ferencvaros next on August 8. They kickoff their La Liga campaign against Espanyol on August 23.
However, Bellingham won’t be expected to be a part of proceedings until their friendly against Deportivo in the second week of August. His return could even be potentially delayed until their final pre-season game against Schalke on August 16.
Bellingham is among a host of galacticos that are yet to report to Valdebabas, including the likes of Kylian Mbappe and new signing Marc Cucurella. The 23-year-old was recently spotted enjoying his holiday in his home town of Birmingham, watching his former club take on current arch rivals FC Barcelona from the stands.
However, rooting for the Blues is far from Bellingham’s only source of amusement during a rare off-time. The Englishman has recently been obsessed with the increasingly popular fast-paced card game ‘Skyjo’.
He does not play about this card game pic.twitter.com/E9ubgPruLY
— 💒 (@lustlisbon) August 2, 2026
Bellingham has been captured carrying the game with him everywhere he goes. This ranges from vacations to football camps and even major tournaments, including the recently concluded World Cup.
Fellow Brummie boy and a close friend of Bellingham Morgan Rogers even revealed that Bellingham got the Three Lions in on the fun. As it turns out, Bellingham managed to turn the boys into believers with his find.
“A few of us…we rode our bikes to a coffee shop, played cards,” Rogers said during the World Cup.
“Jude bought it, it’s a bit of a different one. I’ve never seen it before, but we’re addicted at the moment.”
Skyjo is an innovation of boardgame designer Alexander Bernhardt and manufactured by his company Magilano. The German company came into being only a decade ago but has since seen its reputation skyrocket in the industry because of their innovative game.
Skyjo involves a deck of 150 numbered playing cards and requires no board or any such equipment to play. The label suggests it is appropriate for anyone aged eight and above, with a maximum of eight players allowed and a typical game lasts 30 minutes.
The rules are rather simple. Each player gets dealt 12 cards that are then arranged in front of them in a four by three grid, with only two of them facing up. A player then spends their turn drawing a card from the remaining pile and either discards it, or replaces it with one of their own cards.
A round continues until any player’s all 12 cards are revealed, at which point the points of face up cards are calculated for each player. If a player has the same number across an entire column, the cards are discarded for zero points.
The goal of the game is to rack up the least number of points possible. The game ends when a player breaches the 100-point mark, and the player who boasts the lowest score during that moment wins the game.
The Skyjo game even has a host of variants that were made available after the franchise became popular. This includes the action edition, which contains fancy gimmicks such as wild cards for added unpredictability, as well as the junior edition in which the cards bear colourful illustrations of fruits.
Bellingham does not seem to be letting go of his love for Skyjo any time soon. Only time will tell whether his teammates catch up with him, or end up forcing him to move on to newer pastimes.
