Thomas Tuchel may well have groaned when Jude Bellingham was revealed as England’s player of the year this week. He will name the Messiah in his squad on Friday, but he has no room for the Complex.
Those in Madrid might even have heard a cry of ‘Who else?!’ when news of the award was communicated to the recipient. He knows he is good and so do we, his merits as a footballer are not really part of this debate.
The question is whether a player with leading man syndrome can instead become a leader of men. Tuchel wants Bellingham to be part of a team, not believe he is the team.
The German is trying to build a collective. There is no room for shooting stars who exist in their own orbit, and especially not those who knock team-mates off course because of their intimidatory manner.
You did not have to work at NASA to know that Tuchel was most likely talking about Bellingham when, after the 5-0 win in Serbia last month, he said: ‘There was no attitude after a mistake, there was no frustration, there was no waving, there was no eyeballing, there was no bad words. It was just a team ready to work and put 90 minutes effort in.
‘This is a team sport. If a big player misses out on a tournament, we need to have solutions. If he misses a camp, we need to have solutions. We have to focus on the guys who are available and who are ready to be the best versions of themselves and the best team-mate possible, and this is what we did.’
Thomas Tuchel may well have groaned when Jude Bellingham was revealed as England ’s player of the year this week
There is no room for shooting stars who exist in their own orbit, and especially not those who knock team-mates off course because of their intimidatory manner
Two days after the game in Belgrade, talkSPORT host Gabby Agbonlahor said that I was ‘talking c**p’ for suggesting it was not a given that Bellingham, Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka should come back into the England XI. Intrigued, I listened on, keen to learn the rationale behind his argument. It amounted to: you’ve got to play your best players. Welcome back to 2006!
The best players do not make the best team, and nor should a team be bent around the best player, if indeed that is Bellingham. Take 1966, 40 years prior to Sven-Goran Eriksson trying to squeeze all of his gold coins into the same money jar.
The Swede’s team was rich in talent yet poor in cohesion. But on England’s finest day, their finest player bar Bobby Charlton, Jimmy Greaves, was sat in the stands. His understudy, Geoff Hurst, scored a hat-trick.
And yet, Tuchel must start Bellingham in the next two matches against Wales and Latvia. Why? He needs to know if he has listened. He needs to know the reaction after he branded the 22-year-old’s on-field demeanour ‘repulsive’ in June.
That was clumsy and should not have been said in public, but you would hope the essence of his observation is being addressed in private. This will be Bellingham’s first squad since recovering from shoulder surgery.
So, where does he play? If Tuchel sticks to the 4-2-3-1 system, the No 10 role should be made for Bellingham. The manager has doubts over his positional discipline – part of those leading man tendencies – but the domain just off Harry Kane allows for more freedom and, perhaps, the presence of a white knight, so long as he rides to the rescue of the team and not his own ego.
With Elliot Anderson and Declan Rice in behind in a hybrid of No 6 and No 8 roles, Bellingham can leave the heavier lifting to a pair who complement each other better than any midfield duo of recent years, including Bellingham and Rice.
If Tuchel is right and matches at next summer’s World Cup in the sweatbox of North America are laborious and as close as the humidity, then moments will likely decide them. Bellingham is England’s best ‘moments’ player.
Elliot Anderson and Declan Rice can afford Bellingham the freedom to roam by locking down the deep-lying midfield roles
If matches at the World Cup in the sweatbox of North America are laborious and as close as the humidity, then moments will likely decide them. Bellingham is England’s best ‘moments’ player
That should not mean he plays with the lone-gunslinger swagger like he did at Euro 2024, but it does mean he can be the difference-maker when the team needs inspiration. He can provide the lightning without the moodiness of a storm.
David Platt was an England midfielder who never dictated a game but produced those big moments. He also contributed dutifully and diligently to the collective. In a scene from the brilliant and unrivalled documentary The Impossible Job, Platt even accepts with good grace his loss of the England captaincy to Tony Adams, when manager Graham Taylor explains it is for the greater good.
Bellingham would do well to watch that tape and observe how Platt conducted himself, as both a player and personality. He is young enough, good enough and intelligent enough to learn, and Tuchel clearly feels a change of mindset is needed if they are to prosper together.
The World Cup is the head coach’s target, and he will not be seduced by the prizes polished for one man. What he wants is a trophy lifted by many.
