It’s not unusual for footballers to get worn down and a little bent out of emotional shape by the pressures and demands of their job. It’s a good life but it’s a hard life and things don’t always work out the way they should. It is very unusual, though, for this to happen to a footballer by the age of 21. Yet this is the world that now appears to be inhabited by Jude Bellingham.
How utterly deflating it was to listen to Bellingham talk ahead of Real Madrid’s Champions League game against Liverpool this week. In Bellingham’s head he has been made a scapegoat for England’s failure to play very well at last summer’s Euros. In Bellingham’s head he has been assessed and rated differently to everybody else.
‘I was a little bit mistreated in comparison to what I contributed,’ he said.
It would be interesting to know what Harry Kane makes of that. Or Phil Foden. Or indeed Gareth Southgate. Because they got quite a bit of all that in Germany, too, and have dealt with it with equanimity. Kane, the England captain, is still getting it as it happens. Just as he was at the World Cup in Qatar and indeed at the delayed Euros of 2021.
Others have been there in recent times. Goodness me, Harry Maguire has been there. As for what happened to Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho in the wake of missed penalties in the final of Euro 2020, we really do not have to revisit that subject. But suffice to say we all remember.
‘Who else?’ Bellingham said to the crowd after scoring that amazing equaliser against Slovakia in Gelsenkirchen and indeed into the camera at the end of a documentary subsequently released about last season by Bellingham Media Ltd. Well, everybody else as it happens Jude. It’s professional team sport. All in it together and all that.
Jude Bellingham believes he was made a scapegoat for England’s struggles at the Euros
Bellingham claimed this week he was ‘mistreated’ by the media, and that he was not given enough credit for how he performed
Bellingham was unable to inspire England to glory as the Three Lions fell short against Spain in the final
But to Bellingham – the much-feted and greatly admired new superstar of English football – it’s all been much worse for him. He’s picked on, vilified and singled out. In his head at least.
And this is all very frustrating and that’s not only because it’s not true but because it makes us wonder just what the next decade is going to be like for Bellingham if this represents his genuine view of the world. It is quite one thing for a player of a team to adopt a little of a siege mentality to get them through hard times. Everyone hates us, we don’t care. It can be really useful. But to view yourself as a victim is another thing entirely.
The truth of the matter is that Bellingham didn’t have a great summer with England. He was not alone. He scored that magnificent goal but his general play was far below his usual standards. He has, at least in part, admitted that himself.
In terms of his contribution away from the field, it depends on who you ask. Two people from inside the England camp described Bellingham to me this week as a ‘lovely lad’ who is ‘down to earth and humble’. They say that about him in Madrid too.
Equally, a couple of England’s senior players – one very notable – grew tired of the way they thought he was prepared to take plenty of glory for winning a game and not enough of the blame when things didn’t work out. They think he has changed since moving to Madrid.
If his overhead kick against Slovakia was one of his tournament highlights, so was the way he took his frustrations out on team-mates during England’s group games in particular. Body language? That really matters when you are a team’s best player.
Bellingham doesn’t trust the English written media and doesn’t talk to us. And that’s fine. There are usually 22 other England players in a squad at any given time. Plenty of words to go round. I would rather watch Bellingham play than listen to him talk.
Having said that, his justification this week was interesting. Bellingham said it was because the media had been hassling his family during the Euros. The truth is that Bellingham has never spoken to the English written press, not once.
Bellingham famously asked ‘who else?’ after his wonder goal rescued England against Slovakia, but he was not happy with the criticism he received throughout the tournament
Bellingham is far from the only England player to be criticised over the years, with Harry Maguire regularly being ridiculed
Harry Kane was also criticised at Euro 2024 and has been singled out at previous tournaments
By the time he received his first call-up – back in 2020 – he had already decided that, or somebody had decided it for him. It seemed a strange decision for a 17-year-old to make but it was a stance that was taken and has endured.
In his documentary, he describes the written press as vultures. Waiting to feed on his glory, perhaps. Because that is largely all there has been for Bellingham in his gilded career so far.
Forty England caps, a La Liga title, a Spanish Player of the Year award and a Champions League triumph. It’s been a glorious parade which makes you wonder what he will be like when things do actually go wrong for a while. Because at some point they will. They always do.
His documentary is revealing. There is a very odd moment when he is filmed playing pool with his brother Jobe at England base camp on a day off in Germany and talks of enjoying a family day where ‘I don’t really want to be talking about football’ – while talking about football into the lense of a TV camera. Some day off.
Equally, there is some insight. He talks of his desperate anxiety before last season’s Champions League final. At that moment he appears vulnerable and it’s a reminder of the stresses and doubts that so many athletes carry. During the Euros, he admits that criticism on social media is ‘doing my head in’. This is a footballer who cares deeply and appears to worry, too. We should not overlook that.
But there is also an almost total and rather childlike absence of accountability. Caught on camera making an obscene gesture after scoring against Slovakia and then kicking a water carrier over at the end of the final against Spain, he appears to blame the cameramen. He doesn’t appear to regret doing the former, in particular, only that he got caught.
Bellingham seems to think he is a special case, but he was not the only player to have his performances scrutinised at the Euros
Mail Sport columnist Ian Ladyman admits it is a concern that Bellingham has reacted in this way as he had appeared a leading candidate to potentially replace Kane as England captain
The truth is that there was a pool of 15 or 16 players and a manager who made England’s Euros campaign what it was. Yet Bellingham talks of himself as though he was the only one caught in the crossfire of criticism and analysis.
He appears to view himself as a special case. It is as irrational as it is delusional and in terms of his own future and indeed the England national team it’s a concern. It may not be long, after all, before we need a new captain.
What were Leicester’s players thinking?
Footballers are allowed to have down time. They are human beings like the rest of us and on occasion there is steam that needs to be blown off.
Even so, it is hard not to look at that photograph of the Leicester players – dressed in their fancy dress costumes and slumped on sofas in a Copenhagen hotel lobby after their Christmas party last Saturday night – and not ask: ‘Why?’.
Their manager Steve Cooper had been sacked by the time they got home.
A group of Leicester players including Harry Winks (behind bottle) and Conor Coady (left) were spotted partying just hours after losing 2-1 to Chelsea
In the footage obtained by Danish outlet Ekstra Bladet, a sign reading ‘Enzo I miss u’ was held aloft while players including Winks (right) laughed, with Steve Cooper being sacked hours later
United can learn from their neighbours
Five miles from my house in one direction, Manchester United of the Premier League have just removed concessions from children’s tickets. They now cost £66 for a league fixture.
Four and a half miles in the other direction, Stockport County – who are fourth in League One – are charging a fiver for kids for this Saturday’s FA Cup tie against Brackley Town.
When my friend took his daughter to Edgley Park for a recent game against Bolton the club laid on some pre-match and half-time kids’ entertainment too. At half-time the children met a player.
There is a reason why – against mounting odds – our game further down the pyramid continues to thrive.
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