It was an unashamedly ambitious acceptance speech. When Jude Bellingham received the Golden Boy award, he declared: “I want to win everything”. Given the sense of boundless possibility that surrounds him, he just might. England will enter Euro 2024 after 58 years of hurt, a wait for a trophy that has lasted almost three times as long as Bellingham’s lifetime, but his progress has been swifter and his prowess greater even than expected. Triumph in Berlin in July, and it may be the Bellingham effect. Or perhaps that will instead bring Real Madrid the Champions League.
His Golden Boy award came with 485 votes out of a possible 500: 45 of the 50 judges ranked him Europe’s best player under 21, the other five the second best. He ranked 18th in the Ballon d’Or and it already feels a safe assumption that it will be his lowest position for many a year. As Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo shuffle off the stage, the two prime candidates to replace them as the outstanding players in the world had seemed to be Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland.
