Jude Bellingham celebrated his 21st birthday at England’s Euro 2024 base in Blankenhain on Saturday – having already come of age as a La Liga and Champions League winner in his first season at Real Madrid.
He received congratulatory messages from Tottenham’s James Maddison plus France midfield man and Real Madrid team-mate Aurelien Tchouameni, among others.
But if there was a small cloud over the occasion, it would have been because the party has not yet seriously started for Bellingham and England here in Germany.
For the first time in a soaring rise to global prominence, Bellingham’s performances have come in for unflattering scrutiny. And that is despite starting Euro 2024 with a bang by scoring the winner in England’s opening game against Serbia.
Since then, Bellingham has not only performed poorly but has been in the spotlight for petulant body language in the scrambled draw against Slovenia that ensured England topped Group C and will face Slovakia in the last 16 in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday.
For all this, however, Bellingham is still likely to be the personality England’s under-pressure manager Gareth Southgate looks to as he tries to fire up a faltering campaign.
Bellingham possesses world-class ability, as well as remarkable maturity and strength of character for one so young – so he will not be shaken from an iron self-belief that he can make an indelible mark on Euro 2024.
If this happens, then the sense that England can still somehow pull something glorious from what has been a dismal Euros so far will increase. There is a potentially favourable route to the final in Berlin on 14 July, but only if Southgate’s team can find the form that put them among the pre-tournament favourites.
England’s players have been enjoying some down time before the meeting with Slovakia, with golf and padel tennis on the agenda as Southgate recognised the importance of relaxation in the intense Euro 2024 bubble.
It is now time, however, for England and players of great influence such as Bellingham to kick their campaign into life.
Bellingham will know as well as anyone that he has fallen short and the statistics confirm his struggles.