Jude Bellingham became the second-youngest player in history to score two or more goals in successive FIFA World Cup knockout stage matches, achieving the feat at just 23 years and 12 days old during England’s dramatic extra-time victory over Norway at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on Sunday. The only player younger to have done it is Pelé, who achieved the same in 1958 at the age of 17 years and 249 days, nearly six years younger than Bellingham is now.The gap between them is almost six years. The company, however, is the same.Bellingham’s brace against Mexico at the Azteca in the Round of 16 was the first time he had scored multiple goals in a World Cup knockout match. On Saturday night against Norway, he did it again, equalising through a clinical low finish just before halftime after a controversial goal-kick incident, before delivering the decisive blow in the third minute of extra time, pouncing on a rebound after Orjan Nyland spilled a Morgan Rogers shot to fire England into the semifinals.Two consecutive knockout matches. Two goals in each. At 23.The record sits alongside several others Bellingham has now accumulated at this tournament. He is the first player since Diego Maradona in 1986 to score two or more goals in back-to-back World Cup knockout appearances. He has six goals in total at the 2026 tournament, level with Harry Kane and just two behind Golden Boot leaders Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi.Pelé was 17 when he did it in Sweden in 1958, a tournament he went on to win, finishing as the competition’s top scorer and becoming a legend overnight. Bellingham is 23, with at least two more World Cups ahead of him and a semifinal against Switzerland or defending champions Argentina in Arlington, Texas on Wednesday standing between him and a World Cup final.
