“I write the script,” said Jude Bellingham, “who else?” Sure to boast that he governs the destiny of England in the Euro Cup, behind the anguished look of the Madrid midfielder hid an enormous self-esteem. He was speaking on television last Sunday night in Gelsenkirchen. His team had just qualified for the round of 16 after he scored 1-1 against Slovakia in the 95th minute to get through extra time, after a fourth game as poor as the 1-0 against Serbia, the 1-1 with Denmark and 0-0 with Slovenia. So unproductive in attacking plays that half of the English fans had left the field with the virtual Slovak victory recorded on the scoreboard. They traveled to the most remote stadium in Germany, the worst communication of the tournament, and what they had seen, once again, had made them think that it was not worth staying another minute.
Until Sunday, Bellingham’s Euro Cup script looked like a nightmare. The man whom his sponsors proclaim as a future Ballon d’Or winner had produced one shot, one chance and one goal in the three games played. Against Slovenia he hit rock bottom: zero shots, zero chances created, zero steals, just 12% of passes forward, 22% of duels won, the worst ratio of the team, and the one that lost the most balls, up to 16 balls in the power of the adversary. He didn’t care. His coach, Gareth Southgate, clung to an idea. “Jude is one of the greatest players in England history,” he said. The team had to play for him.
Stones, Walker, Mainoo, Rice, Palmer, Warthon, Eze, Foden, Saka and Harry Kane are probably the group of English footballers most gifted in combinative play since the squad that won the World Cup in 1966. They all have the ability to associate through touch and constant movement. This is how they proved to be deep and devastating at City, Arsenal, Palace and Bayern. However, Southgate has designed the team to channel plays along the wings and everything ends in crosses. Against the nature of his most talented footballers. It is strange to see Kane and Foden throwing walls through the middle in a structure designed so that the ball advances along the sides and ends up on Bellingham’s head. “England,” pondered an Arsenal analyst; “It’s the Vienna Philharmonic, but they only play Paquito the chocolatier”
Sources familiar with the results of the stress tests and lactate analyzes carried out on Bellingham since his arrival in Madrid indicate that the footballer is a battleship. For better and for worse. At 21 years old, the combination of mass, weight, bone density and muscular capacity make him a bomb in the rival area, while preventing him from moving through the midfield with the continuity and application that the job of midfielders requires. He is not a long distance runner and this conditions his game. His good passes were limited to 26, fewer than any of his teammates deployed in the wide zone: Rice, 80; Stones, 121; Mainoo, 65; Saka, 43; and Foden 35. Against Slovakia, as in the rest of the Euro Cup games, he ended up leaving the midfield to get into the area to exploit his hunter’s nose. The instinct that keeps him away from defenders’ marks and notices unmarking lines, rebounds, rebounds, and aerial balls before anyone else. On par with the best pigeonholes.
UEFA file for obscene gestures
He finished twice. One was a goal. The saving goal. It happened just as Benito Floro, the coach who prophesied that throw-ins, the only legal action that allows an outfield player to pass the ball with his hand, would have planned. Walker launched a shot into the area from the touchline, Toney headed in at the near post and Bellingham stepped back to confuse Vavro, his marker, before finishing with a bicycle kick. “We had rehearsed it,” the player confessed after the feat. “We managed to create chaos,” boasted Southgate, who causes as much confusion among his opponents as among his own players.
It was Bellingham’s sixth injury-time goal so far this season. It was decisive like the ones he scored against Braga, Unión Berlin, Napoli, Celta, Getafe, Barça and Serbia. “I know what I can do in those moments, no matter what people say,” he declared, visibly indignant. “I have shown it with Madrid this season and I have done it for England before.”
“You’re 30 seconds away from going home and you’ve had to listen to all the rubbish they say about you and you feel like you’ve let people down,” he lamented, referring to the experts who have criticized him on English television. “Playing for England should be the proudest moment of your career, but too often it is very difficult. People talk too much. “There really is high-intensity pressure.”
UEFA on Monday opened an investigation into whether Bellingham made obscene gestures towards the stands or the Slovak bench, as some videos appear to show. The player posted on social media X that it was just a joke with some friends who were in the stands.
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