Matt Maher: Real deal Jude Bellingham is living up to the hype and more

For Jude Bellingham the same still applies, regardless of the heights his short career has already reached and the fact his ceiling may be considerably higher than most to have ever played the game.

What is abundantly clear, after the midfielder’s man-of-the-match performance for England in Tuesday night’s win over Scotland, is no matter what glories the future might hold he is most certainly a player for now.

When England head to the European Championships next summer, the Stourbridge-born star will be one of their most important players, if not the first name on Gareth Southgate’s team sheet, then almost certainly the second behind Harry Kane.

In many respects it should really come as no surprise. Tuesday night was already his 26th senior Three Lions cap and since impressing in his first World Cup last winter he has moved from Borussia Dortmund to Real Madrid for a deal worth more than £100million and enjoyed a stunning start to life in Spain, scoring five times in his first four matches.

Yet it is playing for England which projects players into the wider public conscious and Bellingham’s performance on Tuesday felt the kind which will be referenced years from now when the story of his career is written, a night when things moved up a gear.

Just how much higher Bellingham might climb and the stages on which even better performances could occur is now the biggest cause for excitement. Already sports writers are at risk of exhausting the available superlatives but in an era where there is never much hesitancy in proclaiming the next big thing, Bellingham is one case where the hype feels justified.