Bellingham admits things were “wrong off the pitch” with England

Jude Bellingham is only 22-years-old, and that’s perhaps the craziest statistic of the entire World Cup and the entire sport of football, as the head on his shoulders and the feet at the end of his legs have already experienced so much.

He was thrust into England’s second division before he could be legally allowed to work full-time. A few years later he was already the main man in Real Madrid’s attacking line and became the best player in Spain for a season, winning the club’s 15th Champions League. Long story short: not much appears to faze him.

But England is one of those things that has managed to push back against his talent, drive, and enthusiasm. It’s not been a happy place, the England camp, despite the relative success of reaching multiple finals and generally getting the population back on the side of the team.

“We got some things a little bit wrong off the pitch"

Speaking on England’s Lions’ Den show, Bellingham admitted that “at the Euros we got some things a little bit wrong off the pitch.”

“I don’t feel like the group connected as well as it could have for a number of reasons. Expectation was part of it: we had done well in 2018 and done well in Qatar [for the 2022 World Cup] and when it came to that tournament we were seen as one of two or three teams that should win it.

“We were not playing particularly well so even when we were winning you didn’t get the feeling you were as happy as you should be. There has to be that element of relentlessness and wanting to win, but it is the nature of football that wins go out of the system quickly and we should hold on to that moment a little more.

“It always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable”

Against Slovakia, Bellingham scored a last-gasp goal to put his side through. But the memories of such a tense moment are not wholly positive: “I still remember how I was feeling at the time. It always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because it was such a bad situation,” he admitted.

“We weren’t playing well. I remember as a kid watching World Cups and Euros where we crashed out against teams we shouldn’t have gone out to and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I’m about to be a part of one of those moments’. It shakes up the whole of English football.”

Now it’s time to shake up English football for the better, by winning the World Cup. “You’ve always got to be ready,” he said, “everyone’s got to feel loved and feel a huge part of the team. The other thing is just to enjoy it.”

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