Harry Kane, Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham: Who runs England’s dressing room? – The Athletic

It took Jude Bellingham to finally make explicit something that had only been whispered before: that when England went to Germany to compete in the 2024 European Championship, the vibes were way off.

“At the Euros, we got some things a little bit wrong off the pitch,” Bellingham told the FA’s Lions’ Den programme last week. “I don’t feel like the group connected as well as it could have, for a number of reasons.”

This fact, widely accepted in private but rarely mentioned in public, has driven everything that Thomas Tuchel has done since he took over as England head coach early last year. He has spoken to enough people to know how bad the situation was in Germany. And all of his work has been about rebuilding that sense of “brotherhood”, as he loves to call it, among the England players. Work that will be tested over the next few weeks, starting with their opening game of this World Cup against Croatia on Wednesday.

At the heart of this matter is leadership.

There is only so much that Tuchel, his assistant Anthony Barry and the rest of the coaching staff can do. For the “brotherhood” to take root, it has to be driven by the senior players. The England dressing room has to be a positive, powerful force in bringing people together. That was not the case at the Euros two years ago.

The only other England player — before Bellingham last week — who had spoken about the vibe-crisis of that summer was Kane himself. During Tuchel’s first international camp in charge, in March 2025, Kane admitted that during Gareth Southgate’s final tournament as their manager, England were “a little bit light on leadership”. Southgate did not include Jordan Henderson or Harry Maguire — two of the building blocks of his tenure — in the squad that went to Germany, and it showed. Kane made it clear enough that he thought those decisions were mistakes.

Thomas Tuchel has made a point of bringing back the unity among the England squad (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Tuchel knows all of this.

He started his tenure with a long series of fact-finding conversations with England players and staff. He knows that England never looked right at Euro 2024, even though they reached the final. And he is determined not to repeat the same mistakes. He knows that this campaign in North America will stand or fall by the strength of its leadership and off-field connections.

That in large part is why one of Tuchel’s first acts last March was to recall Henderson. He knows how important the now Brentford midfielder was behind the scenes. Kane said last year that he and Henderson “complement each other very well in the way we lead”. To generalise slightly, Kane has always been someone who leads by example, in part because he was so single-minded in his focus on his own game. Henderson, by contrast, is more naturally vocal, not just on the pitch but off it.

The value for Tuchel is obvious. Nobody enforces standards like Henderson. If the former Liverpool captain tells someone to do something, something they might not want to do (like have a late-night ice bath), then they do it. No questions asked.

This authority is especially relevant and especially valuable when it comes to Bellingham.

There is nothing that Bellingham would not do if Henderson told him to. And so Henderson, who can get through to Bellingham like no one else, is therefore integral to getting the best from the Real Madrid midfielder. Which is something that Tuchel has been desperate to do ever since he took the England job.

It is no secret now that Bellingham and Henderson have a unique connection. 

Jude Bellingham has always looked to Jordan Henderson since he first arrived in the England setup (Nick Potts/Getty Images)

Ever since Bellingham first came into the England squad, he has been especially close to the long-time Anfield skipper. It was Henderson who presented Bellingham with his first England cap, in a ceremony before his first start in a warm-up friendly against Austria just before Euro 2020 (held in 2021 due to the pandemic).

Remember their famous celebration, heads pressed against one another, after Bellingham set up Henderson to score against Senegal in the previous World Cup four years ago? Everyone suffered from Henderson not being at Euro 2024, but Bellingham arguably suffered more than most, without the man who has effectively become his mentor in the England camp.

“When there’s a lot of noise around the camp,” Kane said of that campaign, “that’s when you need players like me and someone like Jordan.” There were moments in Germany when Bellingham, under more scrutiny than ever before, could have done with the protective arm and guiding hand of Henderson.

Ever since Henderson was recalled by Tuchel, he has fought Bellingham’s corner in public. Henderson spoke to reporters at St George’s Park during the October 2025 camp, when Bellingham was not selected, and he could not have been more supportive, proclaiming that he is a “world-class player and a world-class person”. This week at England’s World Cup training base in Kansas City, Henderson reiterated the same message, saying that Bellingham gives England “the X-factor in our team” and that he even found the media criticism of the 22-year-old “hard to read”.

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That respect is more than mutual. When Bellingham was asked on Lions’ Den last week about Henderson, he spoke with a sense of genuine reverence about a man who turns 36 on the day of that Croatia match in Arlington, Texas. One by one, he listed Henderson’s qualities, the way he makes team-mates laugh, the way he keeps them unified, the way he takes problems to Tuchel, solves problems between team-mates and the way he keeps standards high in training.

Bellingham concludes that Henderson is “the best person” he’s met in football, and “probably the biggest leader”. Nobody listening to him could be in any doubt about the influence Henderson has over him.

Ultimately, the question of leadership within the dressing room is bigger than just Henderson. There is only so much that he can do, especially as a non-starter. And there is another story here, another development over the course of Tuchel’s time in charge. And that is the increasingly strong leadership from skipper Kane and his new vice-captain, Declan Rice.

This is the fifth tournament — and third World Cup — of Kane’s captaincy, which is a remarkable run, a testament to both his ongoing excellence on the field, the success of the team and the stability of his leadership. But Kane was not always by nature the most vocal leader, at least not compared to Henderson. And yet since Tuchel took over, Kane has continued to develop as a leader.

Declan Rice has grown into an able deputy to Harry Kane (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

When England won 5-0 against Serbia in Belgrade last September — their best performance under Tuchel so far — Kane presented Djed Spence with his England legacy cap. He also insisted on doing the speech himself and even found himself getting emotional, knowing how hard it was for Spence when he joined Tottenham in what was Kane’s final season there. It felt like another side of the Bayern Munich striker, one that had not always come out before.

When England sealed World Cup qualification with a win in Latvia the following month, Kane gave another rousing dressing room speech. He told the younger generation of players — those who had not been to Russia 2018 or Qatar 2022 — what a special experience a World Cup is, how much they should be excited about potentially being part of one, and how they had to maintain the hunger they had shown to get there.

Increasingly prominent at Kane’s side during this period was Rice. At 27, he is not a young player any more, and this will be his fourth major tournament with England. He has learnt about what it takes to be a senior player, and knows that he has experience to pass on to the next generation, to whom he is especially close.

Rice, even more than Kane, is the link between the old and young in this squad. “It took me a few years in this England team to get to that stage,” Rice said in October, when asked about his growing confidence. “It’s good to bridge the gap between the two (generations).”

Henderson is certainly impressed. “Dec has grown so much over the last few years,” he said on Sunday night. “Everybody sees what he can bring on the field, but off the field he’s an important part of the jigsaw.”

It was in those three international camps last autumn — one each in September, October and November — when the identity and culture of this England team was truly set. And a new dressing room dynamic, led by Kane and Rice, took hold. They set the tone, more vocal than ever before. And with Henderson, the captain without an armband, giving selfless support to anyone who needs it.

So far, the signs are promising. The mood looks good, certainly better than it did in Germany two years ago. All the indications are that Bellingham is in a great place right now, excellent and committed against Costa Rica, not a man apart but very much bought into the group, celebrating with Rice when the Arsenal man opened the scoring in that final pre-tournament friendly.

The dynamic and ethos that Tuchel was hoping to cultivate — unity, leadership, ‘brotherhood’ — appears to have taken root. Though its true test will come on the pitch.