– Oh my goodness, Jude Bellingham is incredibly good. He is the leader of this team. His parents must be proud. I love him, an English football legend, now a top TV pundit Gary Lineker tweeted.
– Jude Bellingham can’t be 19, I want to see the birth certificate! Unreal, he beamed Rio Ferdinand.
– That boy is going to be a superstar. We use the word maturity a lot, but he plays as if he has already played a hundred games for England, marveled the third British legend and current TV pundit, Roy Keane.
If you want even more superlatives, Bellingham’s glory was also noticed by many other than experts.
– She is English Zidane. He is a talent and a factor that can take us to the end, your line to the Daily Mail (you will switch to another service) English fan Jack Mellor.
The breakthrough of glowing teenage promise to the biggest lights
Jude Bellingham, 19, moved from Birmingham to the German Bundesliga, Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2020. He ignored offers from Manchester United, among others. It was reported that Bellingham’s transfer fee would be £25 million, a record fee for the 17-year-old.
Now he is the only player in England’s World Cup team from outside the Premier League.
Bellingham has long been regarded as a modern, attacking midfielder who will have unlimited opportunities to choose from offers from giant clubs in the future. Dortmund have not yet wanted to give up their talisman, whose contract runs until the summer of 2025. In addition, Dortmund gave up the one who had already moved to Manchester City About Erling Haaland.
– He is not on the market, so that is the first problem with that player. In fact, that’s the only problem, the Liverpool pilot Jurgen Klopp smiled when asked about his desire to acquire Bellingham.
On Sunday night, Bellingham became the second teenage player in history to play in the World Cup playoffs in England’s opener. The previous one was in 1998 Michael Owen.
England hit Senegal’s net with three handsome goals. Bellingham contributed to the first of these, but was the chief architect of the second as well. In the opening period, 23/24 of Bellingham’s passes and all six in the offensive third went to their own.
The opinion of the English press was unanimous: Bellingham was the number one star of the match.
A rare success from England in a 1–0 goal
Although England’s 3-0 victory seems clear, Senegal had their top spot while the match was still goalless.
In the 38th minute of the match, England built stylishly directly from the goal kick. On the left wing of England, we saw a great cooperation with the wing pack From Luke Shawfrom Bellingham, From Phil Foden and the attacker From Harry Kane.
– England have had challenges to finish through an organized attack. In such a way that we advance one line at a time to the finish line, says the expert Jonne Kunnas.
The four dared to wait for the press close enough to make room. Throughout the match, England’s left wing worked better than the right wing, where the wing pack was seen Kyle Walker and as an attacker Bukayo Saka.
In the situation, Kane, who dropped to the midfield, was able to turn. At the same time, Bellingham and Foden made runs from the adjacent lanes. Kane played the ball for Bellingham.
– Bellingham gets enough touches on the ball and can’t wait with the pass so that they have time to make moves for the goal. Bellingham hides his intentions nicely and then gives a great pass to the back, Kunnas praises.
The goal was completed by the team’s oldest player after Walker, the 32-year-old Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson, who had also started a vertical run from the midfield. The hit was Henderson’s third in 73 international matches. The first was born in the playoffs of the 2021 European Championship.
Below, a 1-0 match from a tactical angle and a TV angle.
In the 2–0 goal, on the other hand, trademark England
The second goal, on the other hand, was, according to Kunnas, a real England trademark hit.
– England lives on these. Can attack large spaces. The types of players are well suited to it.
With Senegal’s concentration blocked, the entire England grouping will rise strongly. Bellingham attacks the ball and takes a timely touch, allowing him to immediately get out of the press with a change of rhythm.
– When the other players realize that Bellingham can carry and does not need support, they make a full speed move. Bellingham defends skillfully and carries far enough so that Senegal’s players have to react to him, Kunnas begins.
Kane and Foden move so that they don’t take up space from each other and open up the passing lines appropriately. Bellingham plays to Foden, this to Kane, who gets his first goal of the tournament. Kane had previously assisted three of England’s goals.
In the 2018 Games, Kane won the goal crown with six hits.
The 29-year-old Tottenham star now became the Englishman with the most goals in the European Championship or the World Cup. Kane has 11 goals, Lineker scored ten. Lineker scored all ten goals in the World Cup – Kane is the second best Englishman on the list with seven.
Wayne Rooney, 53 goals
Harry Kane, 52
Bobby Charlton, 49
Gary Lineker, 48
Jimmy Graves, 44
Michael Owen, 40
Below is the 2-0 goal from the TV angle. From a tactical point of view, paint as the main image of the story.
Saka’s beautiful finish in the 3–0 goal
In the construction of England’s 3–0 goal, it was the same four on the left side, even though Bellingham did not touch the ball.
Shaw missed, got the ball back from Foden and played again to the timely Kane. From Kane’s feet, the ball ended up back to Foden, who deflected one player and gave an accurate pass in front of the goal to Saka.
– The perfect finish from Saka. Saw that the goalkeeper Edouard Mendy went ashore, so a little lift over, Kunnas adds.
For Arsenal striker Saka, 21, the goal was the seventh of his national team career and the third in this tournament. He became the youngest Englishman to score three World Cup goals.
In ‘s studio, Lehtola’s archives were excavated
‘s studio also went through Bellingham’s brilliant game.
– Despite his young age, Bellingham is incredibly mature. Reasonable solutions, strong, good balance, speed in the feet and understanding when to give up the ball and when to keep it, expert Erkka V. Lehtola listed.
Material was found in the archives of Lehtola, who coaches the Finnish junior national teams, when the Finnish U17 team met Bellingham and England three years ago. You can watch that clip from yesterday’s studio below.
Lehtola also recalled how another player of that England U17 team, Harvey Elliotthad just switched from Fulham to Liverpool and the weekly wages were said to be £15,000.
– Our winger, played in Honga Matias Viitikko thought I should have asked Elliott during the game if you could pay my one monthly fee. That if you could pay 150 euros, it would be a little cool.
“Is the moped getting out of hand now?”
England did not completely dominate the game, but Senegal would have badly needed their number one star who was injured before the tournament Sadio Mane.
Senegal took the shots 10–8, but the bets on goal were recorded for England 4–1. Expected goal score for England was 1.01 and for Senegal 0.8.
– A very satisfying performance, I think there was ruthlessness in our performance. We struggled at the start with Senegal’s press but sometimes you have to move and tire the opposition to take advantage in the second half, England manager Gareth Southgate said at a press conference.
England have been the most efficient team in the tournament, with 12 shots out of 47 (25.5%) on target. It has scored 12 goals in the tournament, which is already a national team record. England also reached the same number of goals in the 2018 Games after advancing to the bronze medal match.
During the summer and autumn, England’s balance in the Nations League was sad. It dropped to the B-League without winning a single match: three draws and three defeats, including two to Hungary. Southgate received an avalanche of criticism in his home country and the atmosphere before the tournament was very dark.
– Now you should see those headlines. Until now, there has been concern. Is the moped getting out of hand now? However, will that football start coming home, as soon as tomorrow? Or will you keep your cool when France is coming back? thought Lehtola.
Football’s coming home is famously a hokema sung by English fans at the moment of success, or rather the anticipation of it, the background of which is the song “Three Lions” by The Lighting Seeds band.
Didn’t go, because next up against frighteningly clinical France
Even though the drinks in the grandstands were flying, the moped didn’t seem to get out of hand on Sunday based on browsing the British media.
There hasn’t been a real level gauge yet. In the opening group, victories over Wales and Iran and a dull, goalless draw against the USA were enough for England.
On Saturday, in the quarter-final against the clinical, Kylian Mbappé starred France. England and France have never met in the knockout stages of a European Championship or World Cup.
It will be fascinating in a tactical sense, says Jonne Kunnas.
– France doesn’t want to keep the ball, so it ends up in England. How do they get it to be carried forward when there are players in the defensive line who are not at their strongest when opening the game?
We already saw a glimpse against Senegal, but in the future England will also need more and more slow attacks.
– It also supports the threat of change of situation, i.e. reduces the risk of losing the ball in bad places – on the other hand, France lives on them.
– England’s opening of the game against France’s turnovers. Because France can make the difference, if you had to guess now.