Jude Bellingham confident England will deliver major tournament win
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England's Jude Bellingham (centre) battling with Italy's Jorginho and Giovanni di Lorenzo during their Euro 2024 qualifier.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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LONDON – Jude Bellingham believes England are on the cusp of a major tournament win at Euro 2024, after three near misses under manager Gareth Southgate.
The midfielder – who signed for Real Madrid on a six-year deal
The Three Lions were beaten 2-1 by France in the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In 2021, they lost the final of the pandemic-delayed European Championship
“England fans can feel it themselves, they’re ambitious but they’re not stupid,” said Bellingham, 19, who has joined the squad despite a knee injury that will keep him out of Euro 2024 qualifiers against Malta on Friday and North Macedonia three days later.
“There’s a reason for the kind of expectation and the hype around the team at the minute.
“The truth is that we are delivering. We’d like to deliver a trophy and a tournament win, of course, but I think there’s steps to doing that. A lot of the great international teams in the past didn’t win straight away. They had to build for years before they managed to get over the line.
“I think that there’s something similar happening with this England team now. I wouldn’t say patience is the word but just stick with us because we’ll deliver.”
Southgate’s men were more than a match for France for long spells of their World Cup last-eight exit near Doha.
Captain Harry Kane blasted a crucial late penalty over the bar as Les Bleus clung on to eventually reach the final, where they lost out on penalties to Argentina.
But Bellingham is hopeful that England will be even better because of the experience of that disappointment.
“The way we went out was disappointing but you take confidence in the fact that you can go toe-to-toe with one of the better teams in Europe,” the former Borussia Dortmund player added.
“It stands you in good stead when you know there’s not many better teams on paper – you’d like to think – that are better than us.
“So, you take that confidence and you take the experience that we’ve gained from the last few. The goal is always to try and win it. That should be the goal for all of us going into it and that’s what we’ll try and do.”
England are well on course to qualify for Euro 2024 after beginning their campaign with wins over Italy and Ukraine.
Defender Tyrone Mings, who helped Aston Villa secure a seventh-place finish in the Premier League, has been recalled by Southgate after a 15-month absence for the matches against Malta and North Macedonia.
The 30-year-old, like Bellingham, believes that the England squad is packed with “serial winners” and it would not be long before they win their first major trophy since the 1966 World Cup.
England’s 25-man squad also includes Manchester City treble-winners John Stones, Phil Foden, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish and Kalvin Phillips as well as elite young talent such as Bellingham and Bukayo Saka.
Declan Rice, who captained West Ham United to their first European trophy in 58 years when the Hammers won the Europa Conference League, is also in the squad bidding to reach Euro 2024.
“The manager always talks about your club experiences and we have a squad full of serial winners,” Mings said.
“When you look around the European competitions and domestic competitions and the amount of players that were involved in those, it can only help.
“For sure (England can win a trophy) and that’s not just down to talent... There’s a nice blend of experience and youth, people coming into their peak years.” AFP, REUTERS
