Why Jude Bellingham is streets ahead of a young Wayne Rooney, writes OLIVER HOLT
Enough of the hand-wringing for a while. On the back of a 1-0 defeat to a Brazil team that featured two thirds of the best attacking front-line in world club football, many seem to have convinced themselves that England are saddled with a terrible manager, an awful defence, half a midfield and an attack that can’t function without Harry Kane.
There is a riposte to all that and, with apologies for the simplicity of it, the riposte consists of two words: Jude Bellingham.
Bellingham won’t win the European Championship on his own but England have got a hell of a lot of a better chance of doing it now that he is at the heart of the team. He didn’t have an outstanding game against Brazil but that was partly because Brazil kicked him out of it.
That’s right: Brazil actually thought that there was an English player so valuable and so potentially destructive to their own hopes of success that they put a target on his back and spent much of the evening booting him up in the air.
That felt like an inversion of the natural order. History reminds us that Pele was forcibly removed from the 1966 World Cup in this country by the repeated brutality of opponents that left him unable to produce the magic that lit up football for a generation with the Brazil side that won the tournament in 1958, 1962 and 1970. But this time, it was an Englishman that was the target.
There was a period in the first half where Lucas Paqueta seemed to foul Bellingham every time he got the ball. Then Brazil shared the fouling duties around, as smart, cynical teams are wont to do.
Not surprisingly, it limited Bellingham’s effectiveness. But it did not dim his light. Bellingham is still only 20 years old but he bestrides this England team like a colossus already. He
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