Why Jude Bellingham being banned could actually help England

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The midfielder is being investigated by UEFA following a gesture made in the aftermath of his dramatic late goal against Slovakia on Sunday

At some stage, when nobody was looking, the steadiness in the hand gave way to atrophy. The nimbleness ebbed, the dexterity stiffened and petrified like rust in a hinge. All it does is lie there, statuesque and impotent, the skin turning evermore translucent. For weeks, the mob have been crying out for the hand to do something that might, if nothing else, rekindle at least an illusion of intent; form a fist, lob a middle finger skywards, twitch a pinky, even. Now, after all this lethargy, the hand might finally be forced.

On Sunday evening, as English hopes splintered and decayed beyond any reasonable expectation of repair, Jude Bellingham showed immense cajones to drag his country, white-knuckled and strained, from the most precarious of brinks. The mistake he may have made was miming as much in the general direction of the Slovakian dugout.

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For what it is worth, Bellingham is insisting that he was making an in-joke with some friends on the terraces. Perhaps he is indeed good pals with Beavis and Butthead. Regardless, UEFA have taken a dim view of the incident, and are now investigating the matter, like an illegitimate love child of Columbo and Mary Whitehouse.

There is, at the time of writing, no indication as to what punishment Bellingham will face if he is found guilty of being in violation of ‘the basic rules of decent conduct’, but the obvious worry from an English perspective is that, like a schoolboy found defacing biology textbooks with vulgar doodles, he could be put in detention and banned from the Three Lions’ quarter final clash against Switzerland on Saturday evening.

To dawdle in the realm of the anatomical for just a little longer, the gut tells you Bellingham’s absence would be a sledgehammer blow to a stubbornly brittle team. The head, however, wonders if that might not actually be the case.

In some respects, it is unjust to criticise the boy prince of Madrid too much. After all, were it not for his goals against Serbia and Slovakia, England would already be on a plane home, being tossed around the cargo hold by the turbulence of an incandescent post-mortem. I also find there to be something inescapably relatable about a player who produces approximately one minute of good work for every two hours of lacklustre graft they put in.

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But on the other hand, Bellingham’s general anonymity has been, somewhat paradoxically, hard to ignore. He was the face of England’s optimism heading into Euro 2024, the name on the back of every second replica shirt in the beer garden, the subject of that artsy Adidas advert scored by The Beatles. And yet, I feel as if I see him in Lucozade commercials more than I do in meaningful attacking positions.

This slight malaise has sparked inevitable discourse over whether La Liga’s Player of the Season should in fact be benched for a while, whether Gareth Southgate should shunt Phil Foden into a more central role so as to accommodate a more conventional and direct presence out on the left flank. There are certainly arguments for and against.

It is worth reiterating, just for the avoidance of doubt, that no England fan of sound mind would actively want Bellingham ruled out of Saturday’s meeting with the Swiss. But if he is to be suspended, then it would at least compel the Three Lions into altering a forward line that quite blatantly needs changing up in some capacity. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a blessing in disguise.

And then, of course, there is the caveat that in this hypothetical scenario, were England to squeeze past Switzerland and into the semi-final, Bellingham would return to availability rested and presumably raring. These are big ifs, but they are not impossibilities.

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For now, we wait with quivering anticipation to see whether or not Bellingham will indeed be put on the naughty step for his ill-advised charade. The precedent would suggest that he might get away with a fine for his crudeness; Cristiano Ronaldo was only fined €20,000, - around £16,900 - by UEFA for performing a similar gesture, deemed obscene, while playing for Juventus during a Champions League match a few years back. Then again, governing bodies are not always renowned for their consistency, or their tendency to err on the side of common sense. But even if the worst comes to the worst and he is missing against the Swiss, perhaps there are still silver linings to be stumbled across.

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