By the start of next summer’s European Championship, England’s journey to the tournament will not just have come in the 18 months since the World Cup, but in nearly eight years under Gareth Southgate.
With every passing qualification cycle and tournament, Southgate’s team has evolved tactically and hardened mentally, building the necessary nous, quality and experience to finally be winners on the biggest stage.
Southgate firmly believes their moment is coming.
It has felt at times like a slow burn, England’s development from dogged set-pieces specialists at the 2018 World Cup to the confident front-foot side which last night booked their place at Euro 2024 with a 3-1 win over European champions Italy.
Now, though, Southgate has at his disposal “a catalyst” — the manager’s own words — in Jude Bellingham, with the potential to dramatically accelerate England’s evolution into one of the great international sides.
Bellingham made goals for Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford in another virtuoso display at Wembley, further demonstrating that Southgate has a player with the quality to carry England all the way next summer.
For all England’s gradual steps forward under Southgate, increasingly a question for the manager is to what extent he simply reshapes the team around the remarkable 20-year-old.
Great sides, rather than individuals, win tournaments — that has always been obvious — but the last two world champions have set up specifically to get the best from a special talent.
In 2018, France coach Didier Deschamps used a lopsided formation, with a holding midfielder at wing-back, in order to unleash Kylian Mbappe, while in Qatar last winter Argentina fielded a side in Lionel Messi’s orbit.
Southgate has said he is working “as much as possible” to replicate Bellingham’s role for Real Madrid, where he plays as an advanced No 10 with three midfielders behind and speedy pair, Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo, up front.
England cannot play exactly the same way, in part because Kane is so good at dropping into the No10 space, but if, heaven forbid, the captain was injured for the Euros, it might not be the disaster it once was.
Without Kane, Southgate could push Rashford — who cemented his place in the front three with a well-taken goal last night — and Bukayo Saka forward, with Bellingham replicating his Madrid role.
Bellingham wore the No 22 shirt at Borussia Dortmund because Birmingham’s youth coaches long ago realised he was good enough to effectively play every position in midfield — as a No4, an 8 and a 10 — and Southgate has said he likes the versatility he offers the team.
Playing to his strengths is paramount, although the thing about Bellingham is that he has no obvious weaknesses, and there is little doubt he is the most exciting player England have had since Wayne Rooney’s breakthrough.
Kane’s place as the country’s greatest-ever goalscorer — and one day, perhaps, captain — feels assured for aeons to come, and last night he became the first English player to reach 60 goals with his penalty, won by Bellingham, before ending the game as a contest with a brilliant third.
To take nothing away from Kane, however, he has never set the pulses racing in the same way as Bellingham, and there has arguably never been an English player with the world at his feet to this degree.
The moment of last night’s match was Bellingham’s breathtaking assist for Rashford to make it 2-1, English football’s new phenomenon winning back possession on the edge of his own box with a crunching tackle before flicking the ball over the head of a defender and surging into a suddenly wide-open space ahead.
His combination of skill and power, as well as the sheer strength of his will, are part of what sets him apart, and he is every inch the showman, too, orchestrating the crowd during the match and conducting Wembley in a rendition of Hey Jude afterwards.
Bellingham’s big stage at the Euros now awaits, and no one feels more important to England’s chances next summer.
