Jude Bellingham Explains Heated Clash With Lionel Messi During Argentina 2-1 England
Jude Bellingham Explains Heated Clash With Lionel Messi During Argentina 2-1 England
James joined Football FanCast in 2016 following a three-year spell working for Shoot Magazine, working his way up from freelance writer to editor, before moving across to GMS in 2020.
James has created exclusive, opinion and news content on GIVEMESPORT, with a predominant focus on the Premier League.
He has also developed strong working relationships with top tier journalists such as Fabrizio Romano, Dharmesh Sheth and Ben Jacobs, regularly chatting to them as part of an exclusives initiative.
England were looking to reach their first final in the tournament since 1966 but, unsurprisingly, it was a feisty start to the encounter in Georgia with many niggly fouls that the referee let go.
The Three Lions did find the breakthrough early in the second half as Anthony Gordon slammed home Morgan Rogers’ cross to give Thomas Tuchel’s men the lead, but the German coach decided in the latter stages of the game that the best route to go down was to bring on defenders and put as many people behind the ball as possible.
It was a tactic that had worked in previous matches at the tournament, but it wasn’t the same outcome this time as goals from Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez, the second of which arrived in stoppage-time, won the game for Lionel Scaloni’s men.
England will now face France in the third place playoff on Saturday night, while Argentina will look to retain the World Cup trophy by beating Spain in New Jersey on Sunday.
Bellingham Explains Heated Clash With Messi
Before England took the lead and with the scoreline at 0-0 in the second half, Bellingham and Messi were involved in a heated exchange on the field.
Emotions and adrenaline were high in a match that had so much riding on it, and it threatened to spill over as the duo had a conversation when the game had stopped.
After the conversation had finished, Messi appeared to nod sarcastically to Bellingham, who turned away smiling.
Explaining the discussion in the post-match mixed zone, the Real Madrid midfielder played down that it was anything fiery:
“I thought there had been a mistake before that, and he said to me, ‘I’m talking about the shot that was against me’. I said something to him. ‘You are strong enough to bear it, do you know what I mean?’
“But no, it was just a normal conversation. For me, it was an honour to play against Messi, there was no disagreement or problem between us, the loss is very painful, but to play against him was a privilege.”
New Footage Shows Why Bellingham Slapped Valentin Barco
Bellingham was involved in another incident after the final whistle in Atlanta, where he appeared to slap Argentina substitute Valentin Barco on the back of the head as he celebrated with his teammates.
