Jude Bellingham can be England’s moments player at a World Cup defined by them

With fewer than 30 minutes left here in New Jersey, England were second in Group L. Fans were looking up flights to Toronto. England had not scored a goal for 10 days, or more pertinently, for 157 minutes of football, not including added time.

It was all starting to feel a bit Euro 2016. 10 years ago, England had four points from their first two games. Roy Hodgson decided to make six changes for the third game against Slovakia, hoping to spark an improvement. England were unwatchable, drew 0-0, and then Iceland happened one week after. We could all see the outline of the iceberg on the horizon.

Bukayo Saka had a corner from the left. He had struggled all afternoon, barely able to beat his opponent, and it was the delivery of a tired man, too flat, too low even for Jose Fajardo or Andres Andrade to head away. Jorge Gutierrez had both arms securely wrapped around Bellingham, and it looked like England were going nowhere. But Bellingham, facing back towards Saka, used Gutierrez as a crutch, holding firm, extending his left leg far enough to divert the ball bouncing into the bottom corner. It was in the net before anyone else had caught on.

Three minutes later, Bellingham was released down the left wing. He shifted back onto his right foot, feinted to cross, dummied and went back the other way. Fidel Escobar was left rooted, Bellingham was free, and with his left boot, he curled a cross, perfect for Kane to get in front of Andrade and head in.

Bellingham celebrates his opening goal for England (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

That was all it took for England to win this tight, tense, difficult game. They had not played especially well up to that point, and did not play too well after it either.

For all that Tuchel had spoken about the importance of breaking down well-organised defences, finding crucial overloads, the sum total of England’s play in the first half had been knocking the ball down the line to Marcus Rashford and hoping for the best. Kane, for the second game in a row, had struggled to find the room to make an impact. With Declan Rice rested, the team looked unbalanced, and Panama found it far too easy to find space.

What England desperately needed, more than anything else, was a moment. That is what they did not have all afternoon against Ghana on Tuesday, as they slogged away, first patiently, then impatiently, waiting for something good to happen. The closest they got to a moment, if you could call it that, was Kane uncharacteristically skewing his left-footed volley over the bar in the last minute.

England have known for some time that this was how this World Cup would play out. Last November, England assistant coach Anthony Barry explained that the conditions at this World Cup would not be conducive to elite play. “The environment out there (in the U.S.), it does not facilitate world-class football,” Barry explained. “It’s going to be a tournament of moments. You’re not going to see the best team playing the best football. It simply doesn’t allow it. The team that wins the World Cup will be one of moments.”

Who better to spearhead England in a World Cup like that than Bellingham? He is clearly a remarkable moments player, one of the best England has produced in years. Whatever criticisms people might make of him, no one ever could doubt his capacity to seize a big game when it matters most, to come up with something, anything, to turn the game his way.

Remember two years ago in Gelsenkirchen. England were 1-0 down to Slovakia in the 94th minute and going out of Euro 2024. They had been utterly miserable all night, and Gareth Southgate’s tenure was about to end with his own personal Iceland. And then Marc Guehi flicked on a long throw, with Bellingham producing the most astonishing overhead kick to keep England alive. Thanks to a 20-year-old’s radical course-correction, they ended up in the final.

Bellingham famously celebrated that goal by shouting, “Who else?”, making extra explicit what was already implied by the goal. Nobody else would or could have done that. Nobody else would even have conceived of it. But Bellingham does not think or act like normal players.

Bellingham also set up Kane’s goal (Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images)

Tuchel has always known that. Everything that he has done since he took over has been with the aim of getting the best Bellingham here at this World Cup, hungrier, sharper, more bought-in than ever before. After the Croatia game, when Bellingham put England 3-2 up, racing from the halfway line through the opposition half and burying the ball into the net, Tuchel could not have been more thrilled. “Jude played fully into our idea,” Tuchel said. “He was fully committed to the team idea, and team spirit, and to play in full cohesion with everyone else.”

Not many people would watch all three of England’s Group L games and say that they are likely World Cup winners. This is a team with as many weaknesses as strengths. Even in their last two matches, where they have kept two clean sheets, they have conceded chances on the break to Ghana and Panama that will keep England fans awake at night.

Yet, if this is to be a World Cup of moments, and it is to be won by the teams or rather the players who can just magic things into existence, then maybe Bellingham could still be the ultimate protagonist. There are not many players out there like him. And no one will want to face a team with him in it, constantly worrying about what he will imagine, what he has the power to create.