Rudiger posits De Bruyne is better than Bellingham and Pedri

Real Madrid defender Antonio Rudiger has said that Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is better than Jude Bellingham and Pedri.

Having played at Chelsea for five years before joining Real Madrid in 2022, the centre-back has played alongside and against a plethora of top-level players.

Now though, the 30-year-old has been sharing his thoughts on three particular midfield players who currently play for three of the biggest clubs in Europe.

In a recent video shared on Goal, Rudiger was asked to rank De Bruyne, Pedri, and Bellingham from worst to best in his opinion.

The defender put Pedri in third place, then Bellingham in second, and De Bruyne in first.

City signed De Bruyne back in the 2015 summer transfer window from Wolfsburg in a deal worth £55m.

That deal quickly turned out to be a very smart one for City to make, as the midfielder has gone on to score 98 goals and deliver 161 assists in 366 appearances.

The previous Premier League campaign saw the Belgian score seven goals and supplied 16 assists in 32 appearances, racking up more shot-creating actions (176) and goal-creating actions (31) than any other player in the City squad.

His overall performances earned the 32-year-old a season rating of 7.58/10 from WhoScored, making him the highest-rated player in the entire Premier League.

With De Bruyne being much more experienced than Bellingham and Pedri, as well as finishing above them in the latest Ballon d’Or rankings, it’s understandable why Rudiger put him above the two younger midfield talents.

While Bellingham and Pedri certainly have the time and space ahead of them to have incredibly successful careers in European football, we feel that the City star has been one of, if not the best midfielder in the world for a while.