The final four of FIFA dreams? Is this Jude Bellingham’s World Cup? Day 31 recap
Did anyone predict that Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland and Harry Kane would all fail to score during the last two quarter-finals of this year’s World Cup?
They had scored 21 goals between them and all drew a blank, leaving Julian Alvarez and Jude Bellingham to step up to fire Argentina and England into the final four.
Argentina’s 3-1 victory over Switzerland after extra time was the first time Messi had failed to score in his last 10 World Cup appearances. It was a laboured victory, with the stubborn 10 men of Switzerland (after striker Breel Embolo was sent off for diving) almost taking them to penalties, but Argentina are doing this World Cup the hard way.
England also struggled against Haaland and Norway, but Bellingham came to the fore with two goals — taking him level with Harry Kane in joint-fourth in the golden boot race — as Thomas Tuchel’s team came from behind to win in extra time.
The final four FIFA always wanted?
It’s pretty much the dream World Cup semi-final line-up. Favourites France against Euro 2024 winners Spain and holders Argentina versus their old rivals England, who reached the last two European Championship finals.
That’s almost as good as it gets, right? You could maybe substitute out England for Brazil for a South American derby, or perhaps put in Germany instead of Spain for added World Cup gravitas. What about Ital… — no, never mind.
Anyway, let’s not be pernickety; it’s a salivating final four. It’s also precisely the final four that FIFA wanted.
The World Cup organiser wants to ensure the top-ranked countries do not meet earlier in the knockout rounds, thus potentially creating blockbuster games later in the tournament. The same ranking system was used for the Club World Cup last summer.
“To ensure competitive balance, two separate pathways to the semi‑finals have been established,” FIFA said when announcing the seedings last November. “This will ensure that, should they win their groups, the two highest-ranked teams will not meet before the final.”
Now, World Cup seeds are nothing new. In fact, they were in the very first tournament back in 1930 (although that tournament also had players in berets, refs in suits, a policeman interfering with play and a physio knocked out by chloroform on the pitch, so perhaps that’s not the best barometer).
The difference here is that in keeping seeds one, two, three and four apart until the semis, the draw was manipulated. This isn’t tennis, folks. We like our draws as free and fair as possible, but FIFA decided otherwise.
Allowing an Egypt goal for a foul 100 yards from the Argentina net? No chance. Ruling out an England goal because the ball hit a TV cable? Definitely not. Keeping Switzerland’s best player on the field because his diving crime was only a yellow-card offence? Doesn’t matter, think of the viewing figures.
OK, maybe not, but conspiracy theorist tongues will wag, especially at the route of Argentina and that fairly marketable Lionel Messi guy to the semis, which has seen them face just one team inside the top 22 of the FIFA rankings.
To be fair, a semi-final line-up of Morocco versus Belgium and Norway against Switzerland wouldn’t exactly get many pulses racing outside those countries, granted. But given this is the first time since FIFA’s rankings began in 1992 that the top four teams have all reached the semi-finals of the men’s World Cup, the question of whether seeds should be separated in this way is a legitimate one to ask.
That said, maybe Argentina are just inevitable against whoever they play. In the past four World Cups and Copa Americas combined, they have played 25 matches and lost just one (a group-stage defeat by Saudi Arabia at the last World Cup), coming through four penalty shoot-outs and two more extra times, all under Lionel Scaloni, to win two Copa Americas and the last World Cup in Qatar. Now, potentially, they are on their way to becoming the first back-to-back World Cup winners since Brazil in 1958 and 1962.
Lionel Messi and Argentina march on (Ryan Pierse/FIFA via Getty Images)
Have England ever had a player like Jude Bellingham at a World Cup?
Some players win matches due to their world-class ability, vision and skill, like Lionel Messi for Argentina.
Some players win matches due to their devastating clinical finishing prowess, like Kylian Mbappe for France.
Jude Bellingham wins matches because he is a force of nature.
The manner in which he drove and dragged England to victory immediately felt like one of the greatest and most inspirational performances an England player has produced at a World Cup. At his best, which is what he is producing right now, Bellingham bends matches to his will.
Perhaps this is slightly unfair to Harry Kane but, from an England perspective, this feels like Bellingham’s tournament in the manner that England legends have defined major competitions in the past.
This is Jude Bellingham’s tournament (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Paul Gascoigne was England’s star of the 1990 World Cup, Michael Owen announced himself as a teenage superstar in 1998 and Kane became the first English Golden Boot winner since 1986 (Gary Lineker, another iconic World Cup campaign) when he scored six goals in 2018.
Bellingham differs to the above in that, in terms of big-game and main-character energy, essence and aura, have England ever had a player like him at World Cups?
Wayne Rooney had that cajoling, ‘this is my game’-type energy, but he never delivered on the world stage, scoring just one goal in 11 World Cup appearances. David Beckham could inspire and haul England through matches, but in a manner of setting by example with his desire and work-rate, not always through individual brilliance.
The only comparable player is Steven Gerrard, of whom Bellingham was eerily reminiscent when brilliantly driving into the penalty area to score a goal he had no right to; anticipating Anthony Gordon’s cross and then, faced by two Norway defenders and the keeper, taking four touches to fashion an opening and score.
Again, Gerrard never quite delivered at World Cups; certainly in the way Bellingham is. It’s perhaps no coincidence that in often energy-sapping conditions at the end of a long season, Bellingham, Kane and Rashford, none of whom played in the Premier League last season, have been England’s only goalscorers so far.
Bellingham is the undoubted star. His partnership with Kane is the best thing about England and they will be the best attackers Argentina have faced in the tournament so far.
It’s hard to believe Bellingham was left out of Thomas Tuchel’s England squad as recently as October. It’s even harder to believe that just four weeks ago there were doubts Bellingham would be in England’s best XI.
Perhaps we saw why that was after the game, when Bellingham railed against Tuchel’s criticism of England’s performance.
It’s all part of the chutzpah, the gumption, and, if this energy is the forcefield that takes England to their second World Cup final, no one of an England persuasion will care when they’re singing Wonderwall on Wednesday. Hey, Jude is taking a sad song and making it better.
Farewell Erling Haaland, goalscoring machine
So long, Norway. We’ll remember the fans, the row, the goals and the Stale Solbakken kiss. But mostly the goals.
It was absolutely no coincidence they lost given that Erling Haaland didn’t score.
Haaland had netted in every game of Norway’s run to the quarter-finals and we don’t just mean at the tournament.
In qualification, he also scored in every match, finding the net an astonishing 16 times in eight qualifiers, with Norway winning every match.
Then here at the World Cup, every time he scored, Norway won (he was rested for their group-stage defeat by France). The England loss was the first time since the start of qualification in March last year that Haaland had played and not scored.
His overall record, then, was an eye-popping 23 goals in 13 matches. He led his country to famous victories over Italy (twice) and Brazil, as the country qualified for a World Cup for the first time since 1998 and then reached a first World Cup quarter-final.
636 – England are the first team to keep Erling Haaland from scoring in a competitive international match since Austria on 13th October 2024 (636 days ago).
Shackled. pic.twitter.com/0xN2VJQvDD
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) July 12, 2026
Credit, then, to Marc Guehi and John Stones for helping to keep him quiet in Miami, but far more credit to Haaland the goalscoring machine for leading a nation to uncharted territory.
What to know about this week’s games…
If you’ve got World Cup fatigue then, well, what’s wrong with you? But also there’s good news because we now have our first double rest day of the tournament.
That’s right, you are free to make plans to see the outside world and wear clothing other than a football shirt.
It all returns on Tuesday in Dallas with the unstoppable force of France versus the immovable object of Spain, before we head to Atlanta on Wednesday for England against Argentina and, boy, is there some history to that fixture. We can’t wait.
Tuesday, July 14: Semi-final, France vs Spain, Dallas, 3pm ET (8pm BST)
Wednesday, July 15: Semi-final, Argentina v England, Atlanta, 3pm ET (8pm BST)