Next Gen gave victory to England, who are thrilled and are emerging as candidates

In its second day of competition, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has already nominated two big candidates for the best young player: Bellingham and Saka.

Jude Bellingham is not surprising, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Chelsea are already fighting to win it, in principle. It won’t be easy, for him Borussia Dortmund paid Birmingham City 25 million euros and now, according to the CIES Football Observatory, Bellingham is the player with the highest market value of all those from Qatar. It is worth 202 million euros. And he’s the only one on the list who doesn’t play in the Premier League.

On England’s debut, and his, Jude headed Iran’s first goal and converted 19 years and 145 days the second youngest player in his team to score a goal, behind Michael Owen (19 years and 190 days).

But we need to clarify: this 6’2″ boy is serious. At 16 he made it to the Championship with Birmingham, at 17 he went to the Euro Cup and today he is a starter in demand from all over England.

How does he play? Run like a teenager and decide like a veteran. He is always on the move, steals every ball that comes his way and immediately accompanies the attack.

In his goal he took advantage of a cross that was looking for Kane’s beacon, but, impertinently, Bellingham anticipated his captain and all the Iranian defence. In the third he steals the ball, opens for Kane and goes to the far post. This time it was Sterling who anticipated it.

Bellingham is the flagship of English renewal, but which it competes with Bukayo Saka (21 years old), author of the great goal of 2-0 and 4-0.

A lefty to the right, who always hooks, diabolical, with a dribble that is difficult to decipher. His two goals are very special because after he missed a penalty in the Euro 2020 final which England lost to Italy at Wembley, Saka (he was 19 at the time) received a lot of criticism and racial abuse.

At Khalifa International Stadium He proved he can make noise at the World Cup.

England is a candidate. Nothing new. He put up his pilcha without complexes against an Iran that presented him with a draw without spaces, with five defenders and four sticky midfielders. The Southgate team solved it with his usual air volume weight but also short game and patience, qualities less common in their historic style handbook.

Kane’s diagonals from the center right upset the defense of Queiroz’s men, leaving them without references and for the space left by the scorer (who arrived at this World Cup with six goals for Russia, four behind Gary Lineker’s marking) Bellingham appeared, Sterling or Saka. To this he added Shaw’s permanent overflows. He went into the break with a 3-0 almost without realizing it.

The Kane thing deserves a few lines. It is a tank that can play very well without converting and going out of the box. This time it was very clear.

Iran hasn’t proposed anything, just avoiding catastrophe. He did not move the five defenders nor was he beaten. Proof of their claims was that their fans celebrated the goal, the 1-4 and the penalty on the hour (the VAR was capricious, in the first half there were two clearer ones for England in the same game ). There the team cheered up a bit and mobilized a suffering defense, especially behind Shaw, who rarely returns.

Immediately Rashford (recently admitted) brought everyone back to reality with the 5-1. Then Grealish just had to push to make it 6-1. The discount was left to anecdote and the Southgate technician to fix the footpegs in the background.

It’s true that England played alone, but they played very well. And Jude Bellingham did everything to make that happen, accompanied very well by Saka’s left foot and Kane’s intelligence. A start for the whole orchestra of a formidable team.

Doha. Special delivery

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