Jude Bellingham showed why is England’s best player in 50 years – with wonderfully un-English winning mentality

WHEN Jude Bellingham rescued England’s Euros campaign from humiliation with a spectacular overhead-kick, his celebration caused a stir. After that 95th-minute equaliser in the last-16 clash with Slovakia, Real Madrid’s Brummie was seen yelling: ‘Who else?’. Did it indicate arrogance? An over-inflated ego? A desire for individual glory over team success?. Not really. It was probably just the instinctive reaction of a player who seizes big moments so frequently, that he simply expects them to happen.

When Bellingham poked home in the 92nd minute at Manchester City on Tuesday, it was the sixth time in his 75-match Real career that he had netted an injury-time winner. “Who else?”. Two of those previous efforts arrived in Bellingham’s first two Clasicos against Barcelona - the most prestigious and ferocious club fixture on Earth. Bellingham had been quiet in the first half at the Etihad. He hadn’t illuminated the place like his fellow Galacticos - especially Vinicius Jr, his club’s spurned unofficial ‘winner’ of last year’s Ballon d’Or.

But in the second half his influence grew, although he missed a couple of very presentable chances. And when Vinicius lobbed Ederson in the dying seconds, it was Bellingham who found the killer touch which allowed Real to carry a 3-2 advantage into the second leg of their Champions League play-off. CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS. Because that’s what Bellingham does. This time, it was his trademark celebration - standing with his arms outstretched in front of the seething City faithful. Like Christ the Redeemer peering down over Rio.

If there is an element of arrogance about this then, well, Bellingham has plenty to be arrogant about. Bellingham is England’s best and most influential footballer in more than half a century, since Sir Bobby Charlton was in his pomp. Paul Scholes, one of England’s finest since Charlton, says Bellingham is ‘better than anything we’ve seen’. And he is also quite unlike any other English footballer we have known.

He can often seem other-worldy because, despite the Premier League’s global financial dominance, the 21-year-old has never played in England’s top flight. Leaving Birmingham as a 16-year-old for Borussia Dortmund then snubbing Liverpool, most notably, before joining Madrid and firing the world’s famous club to the Spanish title and their 15th European Cup in his maiden campaign as Real’s top scorer and La Liga’s Player of the Season.

We don’t see all that much of him, and we hear even less. Bellingham rarely speaks to the media. After 40 caps, he is yet to be interviewed by the written press. During the Euros, a set-piece TV interview was suddenly cancelled at the last minute to the disappointment of the FA. In an era of openness and accessibility around the England camp, Bellingham’s fiercely-protective father Mark - who seems constantly angry at the world his son inhabits - keeps the 21-year-old wrapped in cotton wool.

This contributes towards the feeling that, while Bellingham is admired in England, he isn’t loved. It adds to the idea of detachment, of difference, of ‘otherness’. Bellingham has inherited some of his father’s anger. That irrational belief that the world is against him. Last weekend, he was heard F-bombing a linesman who had failed to award Real a throw-in during the Madrid derby against Atletico and earlier this season he called a referee a ‘piece of s***’ during a victory over Espanyol.

While at Dortmund, Bellingham was fined for bringing up the match-fixing past of referee Felix Zwayer. Since joining Real 18 months ago, Bellingham has clocked up 22 yellow cards for club and country, as well as one red for dissent after the final whistle robbed him of another injury-time winner against Valencia. This is no Mr Nice Guy. In truth, winners rarely are. And then there is that supreme self-belief, which seems, rather wonderfully, un-English.

England players, even the best of them, so often end up as plucky losers. The idea of heroic failure is a national characteristic. But it’s not for Bellingham. Bellingham keeps on winning games in injury-time. He was widely perceived to have suffered a disappointing Euros last summer. And yet he dominated the first half of England’s tournament opener against Serbia, scoring the only goal, he saved the summer with that extraordinary leveller against Slovakia and he assisted Cole Palmer’s equaliser in the final defeat by Spain.

There is that supreme self-belief, which seems, rather wonderfully, un-English. This despite being shunted out to the left wing for much of the campaign to accommodate Phil Foden, who has never seized the momentum and turned international matches in England’s favour as Bellingham has often done. There were mutterings about Bellingham’s character. Suggestions he didn’t fit into Gareth Southgate’s team ethos.