Jude Bellingham is on the cusp of greatness - and England need him to be truly great against Spain

Whatever happens in the final of Euro 2024, Jude Bellingham is already a superstar. He is a European champion at club level, a Spanish champion, Real Madrid’s leading scorer, an icon to millions of young wannabe footballers and even an underwear model on the side. But if years of tedious ‘Messi v Ronaldo’ debates have taught us anything, it’s that silverware makes a difference in the battle to be considered the best in the world – and Bellingham will play such a crucial role against Spain that one big game could catapult him to the front of the queue as the heir to the ageing greats that have dominated the footballing landscape for years.

The Stourbridge boy is currently second in the betting odds to win the next edition of the Ballon d’Or, behind his team-mate Vinícius Junior. Should Bellingham win this year, he would be just the second 21-year-old to win the biggest individual award in the sport, a couple of months younger than Ronaldo Nazário was when he won back in 1997. Neither Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo had distinguished themselves so much, so young. And we know how the voting tends to work – the winners of the big team prizes have a huge leg up.

So if England do defeat Spain in Berlin on Sunday, then Bellingham almost certainly becomes the outright favourite for the big individual gongs and earns all the silverware, both personal and as a member of a team, required to establish himself as an all-time-great in the making within weeks of becoming old enough to finally have a legal drink in most American states.

And with the two ‘goats’ – the pluralisation of which we seem to have collectively accepted despite its inherent impossibility - of the 21st century on the brink of retirement, there is one hell of a vacancy opening up. This is the chance to be the next subject of devoted admiration across the world, to become the head of a pan-continental cult of personality and really shift some boxer shorts. Millions of adoring subjects and millions of pounds await.

Who knows whether any of that motivates Bellingham. Maybe he has Ronaldo’s burning desire to be the best, a desire which burned so fiercely that it ended up representing the entirety of his personality, at least as far as the public were concerned. Maybe Bellingham is perfectly content to be a cog in finely-tuned machines at club and international level and kick back with a big box of winners’ medals at the end of his career. Maybe he just wants to be stinking rich. Maybe he just loves playing football and couldn’t care less about any of the ephemera that comes with being a modern superstar of the sport.

Whatever gets the former Birmingham City boy out of bed in the morning, he has an incredibly difficult job to do on Sunday, and whether he does it well or not will determine the outcome of the match to a substantial extent. Likely to play in behind the more advanced attackers as a midfielder, his position on the pitch will bring him in direct conflict with the player who happens to be third in the betting for the Ballon d’Or – Manchester City’s Rodri.

Rodri, the beating heart of the Spanish midfield and the foundation stone of their elegant, swashbuckling football. Many players in red have been exceptional in Germany, but if they have been the best team of the tournament to date, it is largely because Rodri has been untouchable at the base of the midfield, controlling possession and dictating tempo in imperious fashion. There have been very few as good in the history of the game.

Teams that let Rodri alone and try to shut his teams down in different parts of the pitch tend to fail. The precision of his passing, his vision and his reading of the game are too good, and he will unpick deep set defences or play through hyper-intense high presses given even one single inch. There is a hint of Toni Kroos or Andrea Pirlo in the way that conducts the entire match around him.

That means England will have to shut him down, individually, in order to have any chance against Spain. The form of Nico Williams, Dani Olmo and boy wonder Lamine Yamal in attack already suggests some terrifying mismatches and some deep, incessant tests of the discipline of Gareth Southgate’s admittedly redoubtable defence.

That was true, to an extent, against the Netherlands, where the big threat came down the flanks with Cody Gakpo and Donyell Malen, but they were made into a non-factor because Declan Rice and Kobbie Mainoo were able to comfortably win the two-on-two midfield battle against Jerdy Schouten and Tijjani Reijnders, cutting off any service at source. Against Spain’s midfield three, the same set-up simply will not work. Between the in-form Olmo and Fábian Ruiz, England’s double pivot will already have their hands full. If Rodri is given free rein to dictate play in between them, England may as well not bother showing up at all.

Which is where Bellingham will come in, alongside Phil Foden. They are meant to be a major part of England’s attacking threat, but if they focus on being number tens and trying to flashy things around the Spanish box, they may find they never get the ball to do anything exciting with in the first place. They will have to be disciplined and harass Rodri at every opportunity out of possession. When off the ball, they will have to get back quickly and prevent Spain from having an easy three-on-two overlap in the centre of the pitch. On the ball, they will have to do their attacking work with one eye on the fact that they cannot afford to be caught out in transition when they lose it.

That’s a hell of a balancing act to pull off, and it may necessitate that England do more of their attacking down the flanks. That carries risks too, of course, but as demonstrated by the Dutch, even the most fearsome wide forwards look toothless when they don’t get anything to work with – and for all the enormity of their attacking excellence, both leave gaps in behind to attack. It is behind Williams and Yamal that England are likely to find their biggest openings.

There was a school of thought in Spain that one of the reasons Bellingham was converted into a sort of false nine, playing through the middle, after his arrival from Borussia Dortmund was that he didn’t have the stamina to play as a central midfielder all game long. That theory raised eyebrows in the Bundesliga, but if there is any truth to it then he will have a big problem on Sunday – as will England, because the fluidity and control of the Spanish midfield will necessitate a lot of time spent chasing lost causes in order to avoid too much space opening up.

This isn’t Bellingham’s last test, of course. He can fail miserably and go on to be a true great. But for England to overcome the odds and win Euro 2024, they will need him to pass this one – and that might be a contribution that eclipses even that bicycle kick against Slovakia. And then he’d have all the clout and cash and cult of personality that he wants. Or just a winner’s medal and the chance to touch the Henri Delaunay trophy. Perhaps that’s enough.