This World Cup has been about the biggest names from the beginning but as Miami welcomes back its new favourite sporting pleasure on Saturday night, the man in with a shout of the Ballon d’Or probably won’t be the headline. With apologies to Harry Kane, in a football world moving past its two-decades-long domination by the Lionel Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo duopoly, a pair of younger world-class stars will be attracting the majority of the glare as England take on Norway.
Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland have met regularly in the Champions League for Real Madrid and Manchester City over the past three years, but this is different. Their first encounter at international level is news on the front pages of the tabloids and gossip mags alike, Hello! running a feature titled “Inside Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland’s unlikely friendship before fierce Fifa showdown” ahead of the World Cup quarter-final in Florida. If Bellingham and Haaland were the game’s next superstar rivalry in the years to come (again, with apologies to Kylian Mbappé and Lamine Yamal) they would define the competition in starkly different parameters to their Argentinian and Portuguese predecessors.
