A whole lot of football fans believe Kobbie Mainoo should have been named Man of the Match ahead of the eventual winner, Jude Bellingham in their match against Slovakia in the round of 16 of the EURO 2024. Bellingham scored an acrobatic equaliser in 5th minute of the stoppage time to prevent what would have been one of the biggest upsets in the tournament.

Should be Mainoo based on performance a fan said.

On what basis? Did nothing for 94 minutes another fan said.

The thing with argument like this is that they are not rooted in reality, but in distorted perception. Mainoo’s performance was average at best much like Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden. He was not bad, but he was not great either. I would say the same for Jude Bellingham, but the difference is that he scored an impressive goal in a high pressure moment, putting him way above Mainoo.
Anyone who saw the match could see that England dominated possession in their own half when they went a goal behind, because of that Mainoo had a lot of the ball, but hardly did anything spectacular with it. So while it is easy spot Mainoo many times during the game, you can hardly point out any special moments with the ball. Jude Bellingham on the other hand has to play in the opponent’s third half where Slovakian players gave away the most minimal space for the English players to exploit, leaving Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka with nothing to do to affect the game, not until Bellingham’s magical moment.

But am I saying Jude Bellingham deserved to be the MOM? Not really, though he’s not far off, but he definitely deserves it more than Mainoo.

According to Sofascore, Mainoo is the 5th best English player on the pitch along with 4 other English players (Saka, Foden, Guehi, Stones). But if you put the Slovakian players into the mix, then Mainoo is further down. The only better player overall ahead of Jude Bellingham is Declan Rice. So, if Bellingham doesn’t win the MOM, it should have been Declan Rice.

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