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It is difficult, through our laptops and TV screens, to get a sense right now of what it must be like to be Jude Bellingham: a professional footballer, about to turn 21, having just won the Champions League and now competing in his third major tournament. That intoxicating sense of power, of having the world at your feet, of seeing no limits to what you can achieve.
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One of the few people who has had a comparable situation is Wayne Rooney. When he came here to Germany for the 2006 World Cup, he was also 20 years old, but a preternaturally mature 20. It was his second major tournament, having dazzled at Euro 2004, and he had just completed his second season at Manchester United. He too was talked of as one of the best players in the world already, never mind for the future.
Rooney is always worth listening to, but especially on the topic of Bellingham. And in the last week, Rooney has detected an ominous sense of frustration in Bellingham.
“Jude starts the first game well, but I’m sure he’d tell you himself he hasn’t had the best games in the last two,” Rooney told the Football Daily podcast on Wednesday. “For me, he’s looked very frustrated, I’ve been there, (in) exactly the position he’s in, even the game yesterday (England’s 0-0 draw with Slovenia) you saw him throwing his arms up in the air.”
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There is a sense of something bubbling in Bellingham, an energy which needs to be channelled the right way. That could be him hurtling into the box, flattening Andrija Zivkovic, and thumping an unstoppable header past Predrag Rajkovic just 13 minutes into England’s Euros campaign. But if he is not delivering moments like that — and there has been very little to latch onto since then — the energy has to go somewhere.
Which is why Rooney is worried. It is not that he thinks Bellingham needs to work harder, far from it, but that he needs to keep his head in the knockout rounds if things are not going his way and he is struggling to dominate the game like he wants to.
“He’s giving it his all, 100 per cent, I don’t think that’s the problem,” Rooney said. “You want players demanding more from their team-mates and I think that’s what he was trying to do. So, it’s not a criticism, it is a compliment in some ways. But you just don’t want that to boil over to the point where he might pick up a silly red card.“
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For the benefit of our younger readers, there is quite literally no one else in the world better qualified to talk about picking up a silly red card on a hot day in Gelsenkirchen, damaging England’s tournament hopes in the process, than Rooney himself. Because it was in that same stadium, in the heat, during a quarter-final in the 2006 World Cup, that Rooney had his worst moment in an England shirt. Frustrated after a difficult tournament (Rooney was recovering from a broken foot, not something afflicting Bellingham), he stamped on Portugal’s Ricardo Carvalho and was sent off. England dug in, took it to penalties, and were knocked out.
How to avoid this? Against Slovenia, we saw a Bellingham much more pushed out to the left than in the first two games, perhaps a recognition of the lack of width on that side of the pitch, or an attempt to find a connection with Phil Foden, who naturally wants to play in the same space.
Against Denmark, Bellingham took up a much more central role, although in reality, he was not especially influential in either game.
How to fit both Foden and Bellingham is one of the many issues Gareth Southgate is still wrestling with. It felt after the Serbia game as if Bellingham was more influential, but in the last two games, Foden has done more for the team. Foden was due back in Germany for training today, but if Southgate does not pick him, it might open up space for Cole Palmer or Anthony Gordon to come into the team and perhaps more space for Bellingham as the 10.
Equally, plenty of fans have called for Bellingham to move into a deeper role, instead of a Trent Alexander-Arnold or Conor Gallagher, which in turn would free up another attacking berth. It is an idea that looks good on paper but does not feel like the sort of thing Southgate would want to do.
Certainly, Bellingham’s game at Real Madrid involves being high up the pitch, making decisive interventions in the opposition penalty area, rather than in the midfield engine room.
It would be interesting to hear Bellingham’s views on these matters and Rooney pointed to how little the public had heard from Bellingham over the course of this tournament. Bellingham spoke to the media after the Serbia game because he was man of the match and he appeared on the FA’s own ‘Lions’ Den’ programme on Thursday, but he has not otherwise featured on the regular media rota at England’s base in Blankenhain.
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“As a talisman for England and Real Madrid, I haven’t heard him speak,” Rooney said. “What is the reason for that? As one of the iconic players now for England in the squad, he should be fronting that. That tells me that he’s probably not quite right in the tournament.”
Bellingham is only 20, but he is not a typical 20-year-old. Anyone who saw him interviewed on TNT Sports after a Real Madrid game in the Champions League last season will know what a confident, articulate and assured talker he is. (At Real Madrid, they are delighted with how Bellingham conducts himself in front of the camera, as well as on the pitch.)
Bellingham is also part of the four-man leadership group, along with Harry Kane, Declan Rice and Kyle Walker, all of whom have done plenty of media so far. This is the issue for Bellingham: on the eve of his 21st birthday, he is already one of the most senior and most important members of the squad. It is a tension and a challenge Rooney knows only too well.
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Graphics by Duncan Alexander
(Top photo: Jude Bellingham during England’s match against Slovenia; by Alex Grimm via Getty Images)
