England's young midfielder Bellingham played an important role in his team's UEFA Europa League quarter-final penalty shootout against Switzerland, and after the match he revealed how important assistant coach Hasselbaink was in helping him. Bellingham said it was the first time in his career that he was involved in a penalty shootout and took a penalty, and Hasselbaink's guidance and advice played a decisive role for him.
"Hasselbaink has done a lot of work for us behind the scenes and his advice and strategy has enabled us to stay calm and confident in the penalty shootout." Bellingham said, "I was very confident in my preparation and that was largely due to the discussions I had with Hasselbaink. He has made a huge contribution to us and the willingness of our players to take on board this information has enabled us to win at these crucial moments."
Bellingham also cited the important role of goalkeepers Dean Henderson, Aaron Ramsdale and Tom Heaton in penalty kick drills. He said that these goalkeepers have not only helped the team improve their penalty kick shooting percentage, but have also made the players more confident in facing penalty shootouts through their expert coaching.
"A lot of people were involved in this win and it was a huge team win." Bellingham emphasized, "Without their dedication and hard work, I wouldn't have been able to practice properly on kicking punts."
In addition, Bellingham spoke about his performance at this year's Euros. He said that scoring the winning goal against Serbia was one of the highlights of his career, but admitted that he didn't reach the same level in the following games.
"In the first game I played really well, it was one of the best games I've played for England." Bellingham said, "But the next two games I wasn't at my level. I'm always honest with myself and will look back at those games and work out what went wrong and then try to get back to the right level of form."
Despite the challenges, Bellingham said he will never give up trying and will continue to give his all for the team and his teammates. "I'm never going to stop running, I'm never going to stop going forward, and I'm never going to stop creating chances and scoring goals." He said, "We're still here and we keep fighting and see what happens next."
