England’s World Cup journey has rapidly become the Jude Bellingham show. He scored twice to see off Norway on Saturday having also bagged a double in the previous round against Mexico. The 23-year-old forward loves delivering on the biggest of stages.
- Became first player since Diego Maradona in 1986 to score doubles in consecutive World Cup knockout matches.
- Nine of Jude Bellingham's 12 international goals came at major tournaments, highlighting extraordinary big-stage consistency.
- Jude Bellingham avoided stat-padding; his goals were not penalties or against low-ranked minnows.
- Produced 0.6+ non-penalty expected goals in each knockout match, proving an unmatched ability to find the biggest chances.
- When it truly matters on the global stage, England's biggest moments are his to make.
This is the greatest era of World Cup goal scoring, aided by the expansion of the tournament. The two leading scorers of all time are still in the 2026 edition, with Lionel Messi (21 goals) and Kylian Mbappé (20) joined by Harry Kane (14) in the top six. Erling Haaland scored seven times in only five matches this summer, meaning he may be in the upper reaches of the chart by the time he retires, too.
But these elite forwards haven’t achieved what Bellingham has in the previous two rounds. Nobody has for four decades, in fact. He became the first player to score twice in consecutive knockout matches at the World Cup since Diego Maradona in 1986. While such feats can be somewhat random, Bellingham’s career shows why this particular feat is not surprising.
Nine of Bellingham’s 12 international goals have been scored at major tournaments, with seven at World Cups and a pair at Euro 2024. None of the 44 other men with at least 12 goals for England are remotely close to Bellingham for the proportion of their strikes that occurred in major tournaments.
The story is the same if placed in wider context. Comparing Bellingham with his fellow Golden Boot contenders reveals nobody is near him for outperforming the share of their international minutes at major tournaments with their proportion of goals scored at them.
He hasn’t stat-padded with penalties or goals against minnows, either. Haaland once scored five in a game against Moldova, currently the 159th ranked side in the world: no team Bellingham has scored against was below 48th at the time. Even his less glamorous international goals have been dramatic. Bellingham scored in a friendly at Hampden Park, about as hostile a venue as a non-competitive game gets for England. His other two goals were equalisers in the 87th minute or later, against Belgium in a friendly and Greece in the Nations League. Could he make the difference for a third successive game, in the semi-final against Argentina?
England have had four instances of a player having at least 0.6 non penalty expected goals in a game at this tournament. Well done if you guessed Ezri Konsa against Croatia was one of them. The other three were Bellingham in each of the knockout matches. His ability to sniff out the biggest chances is unmatched.
Forget qualifying games against the lesser lights of European football. When it truly matters on the global stage, Bellingham is the man for England’s biggest moments.
