Jude Bellingham: England's Rising Star in Euro 2024

Jude Bellingham is not easing his way into another international tournament. He is ripping straight through the middle of it.

Handed a starting role as England opened their latest campaign, the Real Madrid midfielder has become the heartbeat of a side that has already been dragged through fire. A 4-2 win over Croatia set the tone, Bellingham driving England forward, dictating tempo, demanding the ball when others hid. When a testing encounter with Panama threatened to drift, it was Bellingham who broke the deadlock, again seizing the moment rather than waiting for it.

England needed a spark. They got Bellingham – and Harry Kane.

The captain, already a record-breaker, and the 21-year-old from Birmingham have formed the axis around which this side now revolves. Both found the net in a pulsating last-16 victory over Mexico at the iconic Azteca Stadium, a match that swung wildly before England’s quality and composure finally bit.

Bellingham didn’t just score. He tore into Mexico with a ruthless first-half brace, a quick-fire double that detonated wild celebrations and underlined, once more, why he is treated as a global superstar rather than a prospect. The stage was hostile, the stakes enormous. He looked at home.

His character has been picked apart, his celebrations replayed and reinterpreted, his self-belief labelled by some as arrogance. That “who else?” celebration from Euro 2024 has become a symbol of his mentality: a young player utterly convinced he belongs at the very top.

Danny Murphy, the former England midfielder, sees that edge as the difference-maker. Speaking to GOAL, he described Bellingham as a “wonderful footballer” with the complete package – athleticism, technique, fitness – but stressed that his mentality elevates him into rare company. When Murphy reaches for comparisons, he reaches high: Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen. Players who did not just play in big games, but bent them to their will as teenagers.

Murphy has watched Bellingham closely. Even during England’s stuttering spells at Euro 2024, he points out, Bellingham was the one forcing the issue, throwing himself into overhead kicks, attacking headers, refusing to let the game drift away. When others went missing, he went searching for the ball.

For Murphy, the debate over whether Bellingham should start was always absurd. He references past discussions, including calls for others such as Adam Wharton or Anthony Gordon to be preferred, and admits he found the whole thing “laughable”. Not because those players lack quality, but because Bellingham operates on a different plane, and has done so in the biggest arenas.

Look at Madrid. He walked into the most scrutinised dressing room in club football and played like he had been there for years. Goals, assists, match-winning performances, all while carrying the weight of that white shirt. Murphy calls that first season “nothing short of incredible” and sees only one reason why this current campaign has dipped at times: injuries.

His conclusion is blunt: if Bellingham is fit, he plays. Anywhere. The position is almost incidental. No tactical chalkboard can fully define him because his game spills out of the boxes coaches try to draw. He can create, press, score, dictate – and do it all with a ferocity that never seems to drop.

That is where the line between confidence and arrogance gets tested. Many great players carry that swagger, but it often comes at a cost. Some glide through games without tracking back, without pressing, content to let others do the dirty work because their attacking output buys them that freedom.

Murphy namechecks Mohamed Salah as an example of a forward whose defensive contribution is limited but whose goals justify the trade-off. With Bellingham, he sees something different: a superstar’s belief married to a relentless work ethic. The pressing, the closing down, the willingness to chase lost causes – it all sits alongside the goals and the big-game moments, not behind them.

That blend is what makes Bellingham so rare. He looks like he can win games on his own, yet still plays as if he has something to prove. He looks like he is enjoying the chaos, not surviving it.

The critics who questioned whether he should even be in this squad, who floated the idea he might be better off staying at home, have been left badly exposed. Murphy believes they should be “holding their head in shame” and apologising publicly.

England, meanwhile, have no intention of apologising for building around him. With Kane alongside him and another tournament opening up in front of them, Bellingham is no longer just the future of this team.

He is its present – and he is playing like a man determined to own every stage he steps on.