Tom Brady has been all in on this World Cup. The seven-time Super Bowl winner showed up for Brazil’s opener against Morocco back in June. He compared Argentina’s wild comeback against Egypt to the Patriots’ insane Super Bowl win over the Falcons in 2017. So it was only a matter of time before he chimed in on the quarterfinals.
Saturday’s match between England and Norway at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami was the moment. Jude Bellingham scored the equalizer in the 47th minute, and Brady didn’t waste a second. He posted on X a simple but perfect response: “Hey Juuuude.”
The reference is obviously The Beatles’ 1968 classic. Brady was born in 1977, about seven years after the band broke up, so he probably had that line waiting in his pocket for the right moment. Bellingham gave him the excuse to finally drop it.
Most of the talk before Saturday centered on the big names. Norway’s Erling Haaland is the kind of goal-scoring machine who makes highlight reels on his own. England’s Harry Kane carries his team’s hopes pretty much every time he steps on the pitch. But the people who actually watch football knew better than to sleep on Bellingham.
He’s 23 years old and already one of the most complete midfielders in the game. The kid can defend, he can pass, and he showed again against Norway that he knows exactly when to step up. His goal came off a quick sequence in the box where he read the play before anyone else did and just hammered it home.
Brady catching onto that moment says something about where his head is at with this World Cup. The guy is a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders now, but he’s clearly paying attention to the global game too. He’s been showing up at matches, tweeting about results, and connecting dots between football and football. That’s not nothing.
As for Bellingham, he keeps proving that he belongs in these moments. The pressure on young players at a World Cup can break people. He seems to get bigger the brighter the lights get.
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