Jude Bellingham: England's Tournament Star

Jude Bellingham is running this tournament like it belongs to him.

Handed a starting place as another international campaign kicked off, the midfielder dragged England through a chaotic 4-2 opener against Croatia, dictating the tempo and driving his team on when the game threatened to slip away. When the next test came, a tense clash with Panama, it was Bellingham who finally broke the deadlock, ripping the lid off a tight encounter and underlining again who sets the standard in this side.

England have been searching for inspiration. Bellingham and record-breaking captain Harry Kane have supplied it. Both found the net in a breathless last-16 win over Mexico at the iconic Azteca Stadium, a fixture dripping with history that demanded big personalities. They delivered.

Bellingham did more than that. He detonated the contest with a blistering first-half brace, two goals in quick succession that turned tension into outright euphoria in the England end. The celebrations were wild, but they also felt inevitable. This is what he does now. Big stage, big noise, bigger performance.

His character has been picked apart, his swagger scrutinised, his “who else?” celebration at Euro 2024 replayed and debated. Yet that same supreme self-belief is the fuel that has taken a Birmingham teenager and turned him into a global superstar before his 22nd birthday.

Former England midfielder Danny Murphy, speaking to GOAL in association with BetWright, did not bother with understatement. He sees a complete footballer.

"He's a wonderful footballer in terms of his all-round game, athleticism, technical ability, fitness. He's got the lot," Murphy said, before homing in on the trait that truly separates Bellingham. That mentality. That steel. The rare conviction you only occasionally glimpse in young players. Murphy reached back through the years and pulled out names like Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen. That bracket.

Murphy has watched this rise up close. Even when England stuttered through Euro 2024, Bellingham refused to hide. He was the one forcing the issue, the one attempting the overhead kick, the one timing a run for a decisive header in the opening game to drag his country over the line. When others shrank, he demanded the ball again.

"He’s got something very few players have," Murphy argued. The balance. Elite ability married to an “unbelievable” belief in himself. That cocktail can curdle in lesser players, spilling over into ego and entitlement. With Bellingham, Murphy never saw it that way.

He recalled being asked whether Bellingham should start, whether another midfielder – “Rogers, etc, etc” – might be preferred. He found the whole debate “a little bit laughable”. Not out of disrespect, but because, in his eyes, Bellingham operates on a different level and has already proved it when the lights burn brightest.

The evidence is not confined to international football. Bellingham walked into Real Madrid, into a dressing room stacked with Champions League winners, and played as if he had been there for a decade. Goals, assists, late winners, leadership. He owned games, owned moments, owned the shirt. Murphy called that first season “nothing short of incredible”. If this campaign has dipped slightly, injuries are the only explanation he is willing to entertain.

For Murphy, the equation is simple. If Bellingham is fit, he plays. Anywhere. The role almost becomes secondary because of the breadth of his gifts. Eight, ten, arriving late into the box, dropping deeper to knit play together – he can do the lot. The system bends around him, not the other way round.

That confidence, the chest-out arrogance that rubs some people the wrong way, is precisely what Murphy admires. The key, he says, is that it never poisons the work. It never dulls the edge. There are players who know they are special and stroll as if the game owes them. Bellingham does not walk. He hunts.

Pressed on that fine line between arrogance and application, Murphy drew a sharp contrast. The very best often pick their moments. Some have barely glanced at a defensive duty in years and still justify it by winning matches at the other end. He name-checked Mohamed Salah as an example: devastating in attack, less inclined to track back, and yet utterly decisive.

Bellingham, he insisted, is both. Match-winner and workhorse. Creator and destroyer. A midfielder who can sprint 60 yards to break up play and then arrive in the opposition box to finish the move he started. He looks like he can decide games on his own, and he looks like he enjoys every second of the responsibility.

Murphy’s verdict on the critics was unforgiving. Those who questioned whether Bellingham should even be in the squad, let alone starting. Those who floated the idea he might be better off staying at home. In Murphy’s view, they should be “holding their head in shame” and apologising publicly.

Because right now, with England chasing glory again and another tournament unfolding under fierce scrutiny, it is Bellingham who keeps stepping into the spotlight. Not blinking. Not backing down. And with every decisive touch, every goal, every celebration, the question grows louder: how far can this one player drag a nation?