England tactics: How Jude Bellingham became Thomas Tuchel’s most important player

In June 2024, Jude Bellingham scored a dramatic overhead kick in the 95th minute against Slovakia to rescue England’s hopes at the Euros.

In the heat of the moment, he celebrated by screaming into the jubilant crowd.

“Who else?”

After England’s 2-0 win against Panama, the 22 year-old’s performance has a similar feel to it.

Tuchel has been firm in stating his system and approach will largely look the same throughout the tournament but on Saturday we saw subtle tweaks, with injuries in the squad.

Bellingham was central to maximising this system, papering over some of the cracks in the meantime.

It was a tale of two halves for Bellingham who was deployed in a more box-to-box role in Declan Rice’s absence.

In their first two games, England opted to build from the back with the two central defenders and Elliott Anderson in the centre of the pitch. Both full-backs took wider positions with Rice and Bellingham vacating the holding midfield areas for Harry Kane to drop in and join Anderson.

This shape differed against Panama.

Jarell Quansah came in at right-back for the injured Reece James and was asked to slot into a back three in possession – alongside Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa. Nico O’Reilly kept his roaming left-back role.

Instead of Kane dropping deep, Bellingham was tasked with supporting Anderson at the base of midfield and England’s shape on the ball loosely flipped between a 3-2-5 and a 3-1-6 depending on how Bellingham read the game.

After the game, Tuchel confirmed his intentions, explaining that Bellingham “played as a 10 when we had the ball” and that he wanted “to have six players in the last line” – likely in an attempt to outnumber Panama’s back five.