Jude Bellingham: England's World Cup Star and Future Great

There was a time, not long ago, when Jude Bellingham’s very inclusion in Thomas Tuchel’s squad for another major international tournament drew raised eyebrows. North America had not been kind to him. Form, fitness, rhythm – all questioned. For some, his name on the teamsheet felt like reputation over reality.

Then came the reminder. The kind only the great ones deliver.

With Morgan Rogers snapping at his heels for the No.10 role and high-profile creators like Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Morgan Gibbs-White left at home, Bellingham walked into this World Cup carrying the weight of a playmaking ‘Galactico’ from Real Madrid. The expectation was heavy. The scrutiny even heavier.

He has treated both with contempt.

The man who turned “who else?” into a statement of intent at Euro 2024 has gone back to his favourite stage and started rearranging the scenery. He opened his World Cup account for 2026 by dragging England back in front in a 4-2 win over Croatia, a chaotic, breathless game that demanded clarity from someone in white. Bellingham supplied it, and with that, England’s campaign found its stride.

That was only the opening act.

Against Panama, in a tight, attritional contest, it was Bellingham again who broke the deadlock. A match going nowhere suddenly had direction. The pattern is becoming familiar: when the tension rises, he steps into the frame, not away from it.

Then came Mexico in the last 16, at altitude, inside the cauldron of the Azteca Stadium, with a home crowd intent on swallowing England whole. This is where lesser players shrink. Bellingham did the opposite. A rapid-fire brace turned a hazardous assignment into one of England’s standout World Cup wins, a statement night at FIFA’s flagship event that will live long in the memory.

He is 23, yet already delivering the kind of moments that used to belong to the game’s great enigmas. Gazza. Rooney. The names hang heavy in English football, but Bellingham is earning the right to sit alongside them.

Former England defender Des Walker, speaking to GOAL in association with Wiz Slots, did not hesitate when asked if Bellingham belongs in that company. “He comes to the party, Jude, in the important games, in the important moments. That's what Rooney does, that's what Gazza does, that's what all great players do,” Walker said, cutting straight to the heart of it.

Walker went further, homing in on the raw physicality that underpins the artistry. “He is the best athlete, probably in the world, in terms of the amount of running he can do and the power that he has from the first minute to the last minute,” he said. That engine, that relentlessness, is no side note. It’s the platform for everything.

“And more than anything,” Walker added, “when Jude goes in the box, he goes in for one reason. He doesn't go in to make up the numbers, he goes in to get the goal.” It is a simple line, but it explains why Harry Kane is no longer the sole carrier of England’s scoring burden. Bellingham arrives with intent, not decoration. “Jude will, in every game he plays, go to score a goal. And with his power, his athleticism and his will to win, it puts him in that category of the best in the world.”

The mentality, though, is what truly separates him. The stage does not daunt him; it feeds him.

Pressed on whether Bellingham relishes being thrust under the brightest lights, Walker did not equivocate. “Definitely. He is the main man. He revels in trying to be the main man. I think that's what inspires him. He wants to be the show-off, the big head.”

There is a thin line in sport between arrogance and assurance, and Bellingham dances on it with purpose. “That's all good being the big head and the show-off, but you've got to be big-headed and show-off on the pitch. He does that, and that's his strength,” Walker said. Try to dull that edge, and you blunt the player. “You try to curtail that from him, you're taking away half his game.”

Every dressing room has its talkers. Walker has seen plenty. “There's plenty of players, we've all seen loads of players that are off the park, they've got the biggest mouth in the world, they're cocky, they walk around like they're the best footballers in the world. Come Saturday afternoon, when you're playing the real tough teams, the big teams, sometimes they go missing. Jude doesn't go missing.”

That, in the end, is the point. Bellingham has not hidden, not once, during England’s latest tilt at global glory. At a World Cup framed by the grim arithmetic of “60 years of hurt”, he has placed himself squarely in the middle of the story, demanding responsibility rather than ducking it.

Kane, the record goalscorer and ever-present captain, remains central. His presence, his finishing, his leadership still anchor this side. But the energy, the surge, the sense that something is about to happen when the ball finds a certain Birmingham-born midfielder – that belongs to Bellingham.

Cut from the same cloth as Rooney and Gascoigne, yet very much his own creation, he has become England’s driving force, a footballer whose unshakable confidence is no longer a quirk of personality but a weapon pointed at the rest of the world.

If this is the summer when the long wait finally ends, nobody will need to ask who stood at the heart of it.