A former Liverpool star has accused Jude Bellingham of having an attitude problem and a superiority complex in an extraordinary rant.
England midfielder Bellingham believes he is a ‘superstar’ and that his England team-mates are ‘not good enough,’ according to the pundit.
Bellingham, who has scored two goals to help England to the Euro 2024 final, will be one of the nation’s main hopes tonight against Spain.
Yet Markus Babbel, a former Liverpool and Germany star who played in the 1990s and 2000s, has bizarrely slammed the 21-year-old.
‘I’m not sure what Jude Bellingham’s best position is, because he’s running everywhere. I have a feeling that he is now starting to think that he’s a superstar,’ Babbel told NewBettingOffers.co.uk.
Jude Bellingham has an attitude problem and a superiority complex, says Markus Babbel
Former Liverpool and Germany star Babbel accused Bellingham of thinking he is a ‘superstar’
‘And I don’t like this attitude. You don’t see it from players like say Bukayo Saka or Jamal Musiala. With Bellingham, if you touch him a little bit, he’s always diving, always falling down. His body language is not good when things are not going the right way for him in games.
‘Bellingham is now 21 and everyone respects him because he is a natural leader but I worry that he thinks the players around him are not good enough.
‘He should show his leadership on the pitch and do everything he can to win the game but also recognise that everyone on the team is important.
‘Bellingham can handle the pressure – he joined Real Madrid and went on to win La Liga and the Champions League. But he doesn’t look like the same player in an England shirt – there are so many things going on in his head and he might be finding it hard to motivate himself for games against smaller nations, such as Serbia and Slovakia.
‘I really hope when the tournament is finished, he has a holiday and thinks: “Hey, maybe Markus Babbel is not wrong.”‘
Perhaps Bellingham will pay no attention to Babbel. After England’s last-16 win over Slovakia, he quoted Theodore Roosevelt in writing on Instagram: ‘It is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.’
While Bellingham has arguably not hit top form this Euros campaign like many of England’s stars, he has produced the goods in pivotal moments.
His header against Serbia helped England to their only win in Group C as they topped the group.
Babbel complimented Saka’s attitude but feels that Bellingham is ‘always falling down’
Babbel played for Liverpool between 2000 and 2004, winning five trophies, as well as playing for Germany and Bayern Munich
Even more crucially, his overhead kick in what seemed the dying embers of the last-16 game against Slovakia kept England’s hopes alive and forced extra-time.
Babbel himself had a successful career, winning the 1996 European Championship with Germany.
He also lifted three Bundesliga titles and was runner-up in the Champions League with Bayern Munich, while he won five trophies with Liverpool.
At the club between 2000 and 2004, he won the FA Cup, the League Cup, the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup, and the FA Community Shield.
Since his playing career, he has managed Stuttgart, Hertha Berlin, Hoffenheim, Luzern, and Western Sydney Wanderers.
