“Goodness me, Jude Bellingham is unbelievably good. He’s the leader in this team. His parents must be so proud. Love him.”
Gary Lineker was tweeting for all of England when he sent those observations out to his 8.6million followers during the Three Lions’ 3-0 win over Senegal in the last 16 of the World Cup. The goals may have come from Jordan Henderson, Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka, but the star of the show was a 19-year-old from Stourbridge.
Jude Bellingham is far from a breakthrough star anymore – how can you be when you’ve played 112 times for Borussia Dortmund? – but his performances for England are still utterly remarkable. There are not many teenagers capable of performing at the level the England midfielder is currently.
“He’s going to be a superstar that kid, the word we keep saying, maturity, it’s like he’s played 100 times for England,” said Roy Keane at half-time on ITV ’s coverage of the match. Keane is not a pundit prone to overexcitement – and he was absolutely right.
For 35 minutes of this game, England were struggling. Senegal had fashioned three good chances and perhaps should have been ahead. Jordan Pickford was forced into making a good save. England needed someone to kick-start their match.
Enter Bellingham. After some neat, quick build-up down the left-hand side, Bellingham burst through to pick out Henderson in the middle to make it 1-0. The goal excited Liverpool fans and gave England a platform on which to build.
His impact saw him become the first teenager to assist in a World Cup knockout stage game for England since 1966. There was a nice contrast with his teammate too: remarkably, at 32 years old, Henderson became England's second-oldest ever World Cup scorer, after Tom Finney against USSR in 1958.
And there was still more to come from Bellingham.
On the stroke of half-time, Bellingham pinched the ball, drove forward and picked out Phil Foden on the counter-attack. Foden played in Kane, who blasted in to make it 2-0. The ropey start was forgotten and Bellingham went in at half-time with some superlative statistics to his name.
He had won eight duels and three tackles, won back possession in the final third twice and drawn two fouls – all highs for the 22 players on the pitch. To go with that, he also had a 96 per cent pass completion, including six in the final third without misplacing one.
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By the time he was substituted for Mason Mount in the 76th minute, after Saka had dinked in Foden's cross, those stats had not been diminished. Bellingham left the pitch with a 91 per cent pass completion rate (30/33), 56 touches of the ball and just one example of being dispossessed.
It wasn't long ago that England's midfield looked very hard to break into. Declan Rice's partnership with Kalvin Phillips appeared set in stone in Gareth Southgate's thinking. But a player like Bellingham does not come along very often.
Attention will now turn to England's quarter-final against defending champions France on Saturday at 7pm in the Al Bayt Stadium. The French team is being led by a generational talent in Kylian Mbappe; it is arguable that England have their own - and he's four years younger.
