Among Jude Bellingham’s countless viral online appearances, one recently posted interview might fray the nerves of England fans already biting their nails over tonight’s showdown with Argentina.
Drooling over the preternatural gifts of Lionel Messi, our youthful talisman sounds so deeply in awe of his opposite number that many might fear he will freeze in his very presence when the pair share a pitch for the first time in Atlanta.
Happily, this post, in which Bellingham says he studies videos of Messi to learn from him – and implies that it would be an honour to lose to ‘the greatest player in history’ – is an AI-generated fake, perhaps created with malicious intent.
That said, Jude’s admiration for Lionel is very real. He has modelled himself on the little master since boyhood and, a few days ago, when a reporter asked him whether Messi or France’s Kylian Mbappe was ‘the real king’, his response was unequivocal.
‘Messi,’ Bellingham shot back. ‘He’s been the king for 20 years and he’s not dethroned.’
Indeed not. Eight sumptuous goals, two assists, and four undisputed man-of-the match awards at this World Cup are proof of that.
Yet Messi turned 39 last month and now plays a stunningly effective version of walking football (the new sport for middle-aged has-beens), idling around disdainfully as inferiors toil to find an opening for him, then striking like a cobra when the moment comes.
Though his crown hasn’t yet slipped, soon it surely must and, when it does, Bellingham – 16 years his junior and biologically young enough to be his son – along with France’s Hammersmith-born prodigy Michael Olise and Spain’s 19-year-old ‘nino prodigo’ Lamine Yamal, will be among a handful of would-be usurpers.
Jude Bellingham of England celebrates during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Quarter Final match between Norway and England at Miami Stadium on July 11
Bellingham with his mother Denise on the pitch Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid, UEFA Champions League at Wembley Stadium, London in 2024
After his heroics against Mexico and Norway, some English fans are crowing that Bellingham has already reached Messi’s rarefied level.
Such talk is premature and may never pass muster. When, recently, the Argentinian himself named the rising stars who might take his mantle, Bellingham didn’t even rate a mention.
Cometh the hour, however, cometh the man. In World Cups past, the trophy has been lifted by teams gifted with one outstanding individual: think Pele in Sweden, 1958; Maradona in Mexico, 1986; Messi himself in Qatar four years ago.
It was the ability of these now-legendary figures to produce match-defining performances on the biggest stage that secured their place in football’s pantheon.
Tonight we will find out unequivocally whether Bellingham, who plays in a deeper-lying position than Messi but already has six goals (plus an equally decisive, last-ditch clearance during England’s victory over Mexico), has what it takes to join them.
When England stalwart Paul Merson remarked this week that elite football tournaments are won by ‘X-factor individuals’ rather than teams, he may have had Bellingham and Messi in mind.
Some pundits go so far as to bill the semi-final as a straight shootout between these rival Number 10s. So, on the field and off it, how do they compare?
Superficially, there are very visible disparities between them. At 6ft 1in, Bellingham towers six inches over his rival and, with his elegant athleticism, he glides to every corner of the pitch, a Rolls-Royce to Messi’s zippy little Porsche.
Before the media cameras, they are different beings, too. Where Messi invariably grunts a few guarded remarks, Bellingham is pure box-office, wearing his Lion-sized heart on his sleeve and turning on the charm that enhances his movie-star looks.
After England’s manager Thomas Tuchel declared the team ‘lucky’ to have beaten Norway in the quarter-final, his ‘world-class’ star belittled him by stating a truism: that the German, who only played low-level football, could have no idea what it was like to face such formidable opponents in the sweltering heat of Miami.
Not one for public shows of emotion, Messi would probably have shrugged and agreed with the boss.
Whisper it in the presence of Falklands War veterans, in fact, but by dint of his metrosexual charisma, the young Englishman is far more appealing to many Gen Z Argentinians than their ageing compatriot, megastar though he may be.
Lionel MessiArgentina looks on during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Quarter Final match between Argentina and Switzerland on July 11
Messi’s mother Celia gives the 2009 Ballon d’Or trophy to her son at Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona
One Instagram reel doing the rounds in Buenos Aires this week shows a sky-blue shirted fan in despair as his hysterical girlfriend screams at the TV.
‘Does your girlfriend have a crush on Bellingham, too?’ reads the caption.
Another video, aimed at his many gay male fans, shows him stripped to his shorts. ‘How can you stay straight after seeing this picture,’ smiles the popular Argentinian streamer who posted it.
When it comes to their respective playing records there appears to be another yawning chasm between them.
Messi has won the Ballon d’Or for the world’s best player eight times – three more than the man with whom he is most often compared, Cristiano Ronaldo – and has scored at least 910 goals, ten times more than Bellingham, who has yet to win the Ballon.
Comparing the pair’s feats at the same age, however, the contest becomes more equal. Indeed, Bellingham has a far better World Cup record than Messi at 23, having scored seven times to his once.
It’s when we come to the similarities between tonight’s leading lights, though, that things become more intriguing.
Take their backgrounds, which both proudly describe as ‘working-class’ – though that terminology carries rather different meanings in the dirt-poor barrios of Rosario and the affluent West Midlands market town of Stourbridge.
Of Spanish and Italian descent, Messi’s father, Jorge, worked at a metal factory and his mother, Celia, made magnets (which helped the ball stick to Lionel’s feet, locals like to joke).
He honed his dribbling skills on scrubland near his grim concrete house, which is now a boarded-up shrine, and his earliest influence was his maternal granny, Celia Olivera Cuccittini, who arranged his first trial match, aged six, and was always there to watch him.
Blessed with breathtaking speed, balance and ball control, at 13 he came to the notice of Barcelona’s South American scouts and decamped with his family to Spain.
As he then stood just 4ft 7in, the average height for a nine-year-old, the club feared he might never be tall enough to fulfil his talent, but growth hormone treatment helped him grow a further foot.
Such developmental problems didn’t beset Bellingham, a budding Adonis from birth. Unlike Messi, as an infant he was bored by football – he would wander away from early games to make daisy chains for his mother, Denise, he says amusingly.
But as he watched his policeman father, Mark, scoring prolifically for minor teams such as Halesowen Town, his passion for the game grew, and by 16 he had become the youngest player to represent Birmingham City.
Messi runs with the ball during the World Cup Quarter Final match at Kansas City Stadium
While Messi began his career at Barca, one of the world’s leading clubs, the Bellinghams steered Jude along a different path, advising him to bypass the Premier League and join unfashionable German team Borussia Dortmund, who develop and fast-track young players.
Though both roads ultimately led to the top, there have been bumps along the way.
For Messi, the most formidable stumbling block has come in the similarly squat shape of Diego Armando Maradona.
Leaving aside who is the greater player – a question that leaves the global jury hung – in Argentina, at least, Messi has never been revered like his predecessor, who is afforded godly status, and probably never will be. As I have learned on my visits, the reason is buried deep in the Argentinian national psychology.
It is a country where tragedy and heroism go hand in hand, and where public figures such as Maradona and Evita Peron, who open their souls and lay bare their flaws, are put on a pedestal, the only proviso being their undying love for their benighted homeland.
That the introverted and seemingly passionless Messi has never been able to demonstrate his patriotism in the same melodramatic manner made it difficult, for many years, for Argentinians – much as they respected his artistry – to take him to their hearts.
His unwillingness to be drawn into the perpetual political struggle that divides his countrymen, unlike the avowedly communist Maradona who sported a tattoo of Che Guevara and counted Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro as a friend, further alienated him from fans.
Not long ago, Argentina’s ‘chainsaw’ president, Right-wing populist Javier Milei, mockingly declared that Messi’s famous left foot and his socialist views were well matched.
Yet as his team moves closer to a fourth World Cup triumph, Milei appears keen to claim him as an ally. Leftist Argentinians were dismayed, earlier this year, when Messi and his new teammates at Inter Miami – the Major League Soccer club partly owned by David Beckham – met Donald Trump at the White House.
With rampant inflation causing hardship to millions of his countrymen, some also find his ultra extravagant lifestyle distasteful.
With commercial interests ranging from real estate to a stake in Apple TV, his on and off-field income totals £105million, according to Forbes magazine’s list of highest-paid athletes, and he is already estimated to be a dollar billionaire.
Meanwhile, his childhood sweetheart Antonella Roccuzzo, 38, with whom he has three sons and whom he married in 2017, is belatedly forging a lucrative career as an influencer.
Adding to their ranch in Rosario and sprawling property near Barcelona, they recently bought an £8million waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale.
Bellingham celebrated his goal with Noni Madueke (left) and Harry Kane (right) against Croatia on June 17
Then there is his exotic car collection, one of the finest in the world, which reportedly includes a 1957 Ferrari 335 S Spider Scaglietti that is said to have set him back £20million.
All this, and yet it appears that it isn’t enough. For in 2016 a Spanish court convicted Messi and his father, who handles his business affairs, of evading tax on £3.5million of hidden image-rights income. They were initially sentenced to 21-month jail sentences, but these were later commuted to substantial fines.
A further shadow was cast over the pair’s financial dealings that same year, when the Panama Papers – a huge cache of financial and legal documents leaked in 2016 – revealed that they owned an undisclosed shell company in the Central American country.
In fairness, though Messi may never be deified by his compatriots, he is now a long way down the road to redemption.
Any perception that he didn’t bleed for the sky blue and white striped shirt, like Maradona, was dispelled by the tears he shed after almost singlehandedly leading Argentina to glory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He scored in every knock-out round, and netted twice in the final.
That he can still outperform the world’s best as a strolling 39-year-old is only enhancing his air of immortality.
Over the past two years, of course, the young pretender has also found himself struggling to recover the love of his country. In Bellingham’s case, the opprobrium was born of the unpleasant arrogant streak he seemed to be acquiring as his star rose.
For a while, as we cringed at his posturing and preening, and apparent disrespect for officials and opponents, his behaviour seemed in danger of destroying him.
Tuchel said his mother found Bellingham’s antics ‘repulsive’ and, incredible though it now seems, some informed football observers even argued against his selection for the World Cup.
We can now see that, as with many other great sportsmen –from Muhammad Ali to Ian Botham – Bellingham’s ego is an essential part of his makeup.
Yet it took clever psychology from Tuchel, who briefly dropped him and warned that his place in the team was far from guaranteed, to help him direct it to his own, and England’s, advantage.
With his Californian influencer girlfriend and post-football ambitions (on a recent karaoke car-pool jaunt with James Corden he declared his aim to star in a James Bond film), Bellingham is clearly relishing his new life as an A-lister.
In many ways, however, this admirable young man represents the finest qualities of Englishness. He speaks three languages, privately supports a charity that educates Kenyan children, and this week admitted his mother had coached him on how to avoid the yellow card that would have seen him banned for tonight’s match.
Now the whole nation loves Jude again. And if the usurper in waiting can summon another match-winning performance, in the presence of greatness, his coronation may not be long in coming.
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