After beating Panama, where he scored the teams opener, Jude Bellingham didn’t even finish his post-match interview with ITV before being pulled away by Bedlam Stadium swelling at one end.
Hearing the “Hey Jude” chant rise, the on-pitch reporter Gabriel Clarke let him go early, with Bellingham simply saying “I better go.” While the rest of the England squad were already disappearing down the tunnel, Bellingham peeled off to share a moment with the supporters serenading him in New Jersey.
It’s a measure of how far he’s come in just a few weeks. Not long ago, his place in Thomas Tuchel’s starting XI wasn’t guaranteed at all. Morgan Rogers, in superb club form for Aston Villa, was pushing hard for the No.10 role, and Bellingham was coming off a difficult season at Real Madrid.
Tuchel even used the word “repulsive” to describe aspects of Bellingham’s play, a comment he later had to soften, and as recently as before the tournament he suggested Bellingham was just one of “14-15” players in contention to start.
That debate now feels almost irrelevant.
England’s opener against Croatia summed up why. The first half-hour was scrappy, and assistant manager Anthony Barry was blunt at half-time, calling England’s display “fearful” despite the scoreline being level.
It was Bellingham who changed the tempo, driving into the space Noni Madueke had been reluctant to attack and scoring with conviction. From there he threw himself into tackles, carried the ball forward with purpose, and effectively dragged his teammates into the game with him.
The win over Ghana was a quieter affair for everyone, including Bellingham, who picked up the Player of the Match award in a game largely shaped by Ghana’s defensive discipline. He was honest enough afterward to suggest the award probably belonged to one of Ghana’s back line instead.
Against Panama, though, he was decisive again. With qualification already secured, England still needed the win to top the group, and Bellingham delivered both goals in the second half — first stretching beyond a marker to volley home from a corner, then setting up Harry Kane with a clever piece of footwork after making the run England had been missing all evening.
“We had the goal in mind before the start of the tournament that we wanted to take it in sections,” Bellingham said afterward. “We’ve achieved our first objective, which was to win the group.”
He was equally candid about the standard required going forward. “We know what level we are at and what we want to achieve and we did in the second half,” he told ITV. “Every day we have to try to improve and it’s up to us to do that.”
England have long produced energetic, combative attacking talents, and the easiest historical comparison for Bellingham is Steven Gerrard — even Gerrard himself has admitted Bellingham was “miles ahead” of where he was at the same age.
But Gerrard’s England career, despite over a hundred caps and the captaincy, never quite matched his club exploits. Bellingham is now doing something England fans haven’t seen consistently since a teenage Wayne Rooney terrorized Euro 2004 before injury cut his tournament short: taking games over almost single-handedly.
It’s Bellingham who increasingly looks like the difference-maker when England need a spark rather than a system. While Lionel Messi continues to demonstrate, even in a more mortal Argentina side, how much one transcendent talent can lift a team, Bellingham — who turned 23 on Monday — is staking a claim to be that same kind of figure for England.
Gascoigne, Owen, Beckham, Rooney and Gerrard all hinted at greatness in an England shirt without quite delivering a trophy. Bellingham, with World Cup form like this, may finally be the one who does.
