Football’s best bromance: Bellingham and Holland break the mold

“Haaland comes from a pretty healthy family. I think it’s the European touch (playing at club level in Europe) that has exposed them to different cultures and made them who they are.

“The last World Cup was a great success. This made him feel good.”

The camaraderie between the lovers was first seen at BVB, even on Valentine’s Day when they posted a video on YouTube reciting each other’s chess pick-up lines.

They included Holland reading, “I want to take you to the movies, but they won’t let you bring your own snacks.”

“Google is what I want because you have everything I want,” Bellingham said.

Some fans of the two have called it a gay ice hockey love match, pointing to the players – although both are said to be in relationships with women – to fuel their own version of football – despite both reportedly having relationships with women – to fuel their own version of football – a passionate “pure rivalry”.

Social media expert Mark Navarra says friendships show a different and more passionate side to football players.

“In some ways it’s a bit of antidote as it gives people a bit of a reprieve from the more tiresome football social media,” he told the BBC.

“I think football online is often built on anger and ethnicity and turns every player into heroes and villains, so I think what these clips do is to reframe two people who are normally dismissed as multi-million pound assets or rivals or goal-scoring machines. These are two of the most ruthless rivals in world football, but off the pitch they laugh and love each other.

“Also, there’s something incredibly refreshing about two young male athletes showing a warm, candid camaraderie without needing to show hostility to the cameras — they still want to beat each other up, but they still love and care for each other.”

“Their chemistry feels more natural than engineered. This friendship has years of history behind it.”

“They’re also a wonderful combination of characters, Bellingham is polished, articulate, emotionally expressive, Haaland is more eccentric, deadpan, naturally pretentious – I think together they show things that fans of each don’t see when they’re playing as famous athletes.”

The off-field life of the two players is also a part of their popularity.

Haaland’s girlfriend is his childhood sweetheart Isabelle Haussing Johansson.

In an interview with the Norwegian channel NRK, they seem to have gone too far in the life of footballers, explaining a typical evening.