Watching Jude Bellingham sometimes feels like watching someone quietly challenge one of physics’ oldest principles: the impenetrability of matter. We are taught that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Then you watch Jude.

For a few minutes, stop following the ball. Follow him instead.

You’ll notice how often he appears exactly where the game is about to happen. One moment he is recovering possession deep in his own half. The next he is carrying the attack through midfield with long, effortless strides. Moments later he is arriving in the box just in time to finish the move himself. He presses. He creates. He defends. He scores. He makes football look less like a sequence of positions and more like a continuous flow.

He doesn’t just occupy space. He creates it.

That is what makes him extraordinary. His greatest quality is not simply what he does with the ball. It is his instinct for where the game is about to unfold. He seems to read the next page while everyone else is still finishing the current one.

This law of physics has become one of my favourite metaphors over the years, and if my kids are reading this, they already know exactly what’s coming next. They have heard me quote it often enough.

As a Real Madrid supporter, I have said for a long time that Jude Bellingham is one of the best players wearing the famous white shirt. Watching him at this World Cup has only reinforced that belief. If England continues its journey, and if he maintains this remarkable level through the semi-final and perhaps the final, I struggle to think of a more deserving Player of the Tournament.

Not because he defies physics, but because he understands space, time, and possibility a heartbeat before everyone else does.

Or… perhaps the laws of physics simply haven’t met Jude Bellingham yet.

So, hey, Jude. Keep finding the next page before everyone else has finished reading the current one. Keep making room where the rest of us only see a wall.

“There is only one Messi. There is, I think, only one Jude Bellingham too. Football is fortunate to have witnessed both.”

Image created via ChatGPT by OpenAI.