England World Cup Semi-Final 2026: Bellingham Finds a Way

Can England win the World Cup?

England are through to another World Cup semi-final. The performance was not brilliant, but they did what was required to book their place in the last four. Tournament football is not about style marks. It is about finding a way to win, and England have done exactly that.

A hard night in Miami

Nobody who stayed up for it will pretend the quarter-final against Norway was comfortable. In the heat of Miami, England controlled the ball early on and then watched Andreas Schjelderup put Norway ahead in the 36th minute with a strike that flew in off the post. It was the kind of goal that makes a nation's stomach drop.

Norway were good. Better than good in spells. They had a second goal ruled out by VAR after a foul by Erling Haaland, and Kristoffer Ajer rattled the crossbar with a header in the second half. Jordan Pickford, on the night he drew level with Peter Shilton as England's most capped World Cup player, made saves that mattered. Haaland, who arrived in Miami with seven tournament goals, left without adding to them. That tells you something about the dirty, unglamorous work England's defenders got through.

But the story of the night, as it has been all summer, was written by one man.

Bellingham and the habit of decisive moments

Jude Bellingham equalised in first half stoppage time, taking a low pass in his stride and arrowing his finish into the far corner. Then, in the 93rd minute, when Norway's goalkeeper spilled a long range effort from Morgan Rogers, Bellingham reacted before anyone else in the stadium and buried the rebound.

Two goals against Mexico in the Azteca. Two more against Norway. Six for the tournament, level with Harry Kane. Braces in consecutive knockout games at a World Cup is rarefied air, and he is doing it in matches where England are labouring, not cruising. That is the part that separates him. Anyone can score when the team is flying. Bellingham scores when the team needs rescuing.

He never hides in a game. His energy is relentless, he demands the ball in the moments other players start looking at their bootlaces, and he always seems ready to take responsibility. Watch him in the seconds after a setback. He is the first one clapping, pointing, dragging teammates back into it.

The best England player in forty years?

I genuinely think he is the best England player I have seen in forty years, and I do not say that lightly, because forty years covers some serious company. It covers Lineker at his sharpest in 1986. It covers Gascoigne in Turin, all tears and impudence. It covers Shearer, Beckham's right boot, Rooney arriving at Euro 2004 like a force of nature, and Kane quietly becoming the greatest goalscorer the country has produced.

What sets Bellingham apart is not one attribute. It is the completeness of the package at twenty three, and the temperament underneath it. Every great England player of my lifetime carried a flaw or a fragility that tournaments eventually found. With Bellingham, the bigger the occasion, the calmer he looks. Tournament football usually exposes players. It seems to reveal him.

England's World Cup semi-finals: 1966, 1990 and 2018

This is only the fourth time England have reached the last four of a World Cup, which is worth sitting with for a moment.

The first was 1966, Bobby Charlton scoring both goals against Portugal at Wembley before the final everyone knows. The second took twenty four years to arrive: Turin in 1990, West Germany, Gazza's tears, Pearce and Waddle from twelve yards, and a nation discovering that heartbreak could be a shared national event. The third was Moscow in 2018, Kieran Trippier's free kick giving half the country permission to dream before Croatia dragged the game away in extra time.

Three semi-finals in sixty years, and now a fourth. If you grew up with England, you know these nights are not routine. They are the rarest currency in the English football calendar, and every one of them leaves a mark. Ask anyone who watched 1990 in their front room, or 2018 in a beer garden with lager raining down around them. You remember where you were. That is the whole point of them.

Argentina in Atlanta, forty years on

Standing between England and a first final since 1966 are Argentina, who needed extra time of their own to see off Switzerland. The two countries meet in Atlanta on Wednesday 15 July, kick off 8pm UK time, with France and Spain contesting the other semi-final the night before.

England and Argentina have history at World Cups, and none of it is gentle. It is forty years, almost to the week, since the Hand of God and that second goal in Mexico City. It is twenty eight since St Etienne, Michael Owen's slalom and David Beckham's red card. What the two nations have never done is meet this deep in the tournament, with a final at stake. Whatever happens on Wednesday, it joins the folklore.

Can England win the World Cup?

Yes. Will they? Who knows, but they have a great chance.

That is the honest answer, and it is more than England fans have been able to say at most World Cups in living memory. The performances have been imperfect. The wins have kept coming anyway. And the tournament's outstanding player is wearing white, playing the best football of his life at exactly the right time.

Sixty years of waiting comes down to two games. Get the flags out.

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