In the meeting room of the England team hotel, the luxurious Spa and Golf Resort Weimarer Land, a chorus of “Happy Birthday” struck up as the squad assembled on Saturday morning. It was for Eberechi Eze, who has turned 26, but also for another player who shares the same birthday, June 29, and is now 21: Jude Bellingham.
“I think we have to always remember with Jude, he is 21 today,” Gareth Southgate explained. “I think we touched on this towards the end of the season — I think because of his maturity and the impact he’s had we expect so much of him. But we are singing happy birthday to him and Eberechi today and we are reminding ourselves that these are very young men.”
They are. Indeed it is easy to forget how young Bellingham is given the remarkable achievements that are already behind him: a Champions League winner with Real Madrid, La Liga player of the season, featuring in his third major international tournament and at the vanguard of the young world stars ready to succeed Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Adidas built their pre-Euros TV campaign around him.
It all seemed ready for take-off at this tournament with Bellingham’s superb header to win the opening group game against Serbia. It was the goal of the archetypal, dynamic midfielder and Bellingham appeared set to grab the Euros by the scruff of the neck.
“In tournament football a lot of things are accelerated really quickly,” said Harry Kane. “In the first game he was the best player and man of the match and in the last couple of games none of us have reached the level we really wanted.
“It’s two games. It isn’t the end of the world. I know things are being heightened and there will be a lot of talk, but that’s part and parcel of playing for England in a major tournament.
“Jude has dealt with that unbelievably well for his age. He’s dealt really well with going to Real Madrid for his age. So, there’s no worries about Jude. He’s a great guy, he believes in himself 100 per cent and, from both of our points of view, we want to go out there tomorrow and start stepping up our levels.”
Kane and Bellingham will both start the last-16 tie in Gelsenkirchen against Slovakia. Neither has consistently impressed so far and both know there has been added scrutiny on their partnership as England’s number nine and number 10.
That was heightened by the statistic during the goalless draw against Slovenia when there was just one pass between the pair: with Bellingham rolling the ball back for Kane to cross. In three group games there were just 11 passes between them – but then there has been just five between Kane and Phil Foden and only 15 between Kane and Bukayo Saka.
It points to a problem with England’s misfiring attack as a whole and not just two players – with Kane admitting they need to be more “ruthless” and connect better. Although, given their roles, you would expect more of a direct link between Kane and Bellingham.
Kane revealed they are addressing this. “From a captain’s point of view I am always talking to all of the players — and, with Jude, we are always talking about how we can improve,” he said. “We watched clips of the Denmark game [which ended 1-1] to see how we can play better. We would have liked to have played better and had more of a connection.
“But I still feel like the movements are there. We’re moving really well and I thought it was a lot better [against Slovenia] than the first two games.”
Even so Kane and Bellingham combined far more effectively during the last World Cup, when the latter was running deeper from midfield. Since his move to Madrid, Bellingham has played in a more advanced position and Southgate clearly believes that is also the best use of him for England.
“Like I touched on before the tournament, the relationship is still fairly new,” Kane said. “Even though we have played a bit together, there’s still things we can both do better.
“We’re hoping that, as the tournament goes on, we grow more and more. From Jude’s point of view he just needs to keep doing what he’s doing.”
There have been flashes of frustration while Bellingham has undoubtedly been affected by fatigue. After the Slovenia game, Bellingham talked about being “absolutely dead” while the global players’ union – Fifpro – has already sounded the alarm over the amount of football he has played before his 21st birthday. That now stands at 18,837 minutes for club and country since his debut for Birmingham City aged 16. To put that in context Wayne Rooney played 15,481 minutes by the same age, Steven Gerrard 7,024 and David Beckham just 3,929 minutes.
Bellingham also suffered from a shoulder injury last November and was less effective in the second half of the season at Madrid, despite an assist in the Champions League final.
At the same time Bellingham has covered the fourth-most distance of any England player at the Euros and only Kyle Walker has run faster. No one can fault his effort.
It is just whether it is being channelled correctly, which may be a result of youth. There will also be peaks and troughs around young sports people which we appear to struggle to accept. How consistent were Ronaldo or Messi or Rooney at 21?
Even so it has led to the question as to whether Bellingham should be rested – dropped – and whether he is justifying his place in the team or his role should change and Foden should move inside. Southgate is having none of that. Bellingham has continued to train as the No10. “I have one to ones with all my players nearly every day so that wouldn’t be unusual,” Southgate said when asked whether he had talked to Bellingham about his apparent shows of frustration.
“We’ve got a lot of young players in the team and they are performing on one of the biggest stages in world football,” he added. “There are inevitably going to be days when you hit the heights and days when you don’t quite hit those heights, but he’s a top player and he is fully motivated for the game.”