Jude Bellingham lookalikes compete for a £1,966 Deliveroo voucher

Contestants in the Jude Bellingham lookalike competition pose for photographs at Boxpark in Shoreditch, hours before England’s semi-final against Argentina in Atlanta. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA View image in fullscreen Contestants in the Jude Bellingham lookalike competition pose for photographs at Boxpark in Shoreditch, hours before England’s semi-final against Argentina in Atlanta. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA Jude Bellingham lookalikes compete for a £1,966 Deliveroo voucher The match-winning England striker is ‘a good ambassador for young people’, says one contestant All together now, with arms in the air: One Jude Bellingham , there’s only one Jude Bellingham … Unless, that is, you happened to find yourself in Shoreditch, east London, on Wednesday, where a dozen young men who looked vaguely like the England midfielder gathered for a lookalike contest almost as competitive as the one currently continuing in the US. For England football fans who dream of cloning their rampaging match-winner, the event might have offered a glimpse of a fantastical future. Bellingham has scored six goals in as many games in the competition, and another one of him in England’s midfield would surely not go amiss. View image in fullscreen Marcus Legemah, the winner of the Jude Bellingham lookalike competition, receives his Deliveroo voucher for £1,966 and a Beatles box set from an Erling Haaland lookalike. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA For everyone else, just hours before England were due to face Argentina in the semi-finals in Atlanta, it offered a glitchy megaphone, a scrum of influencers with cameraphones and an opportunity to kill some time before they decamped to the pub for an evening of stress and alcohol. The prize for the Jude-iest Jude? Not, this time, a gold trophy of two figures holding the globe, but a Deliveroo voucher to the value of £1,966 – an always-welcome reminder of the six long decades since England last got its hands on the World Cup . Could this year be any different? The Bellinghams were bullish. “Yeah of course. Come on England. It’s coming home,” said 19-year-old Zane Proctor, a Manchester university student who had found out about the event on Instagram. “I was in the local area and thought, why not?” He probably wasn’t the closest doppelganger, he admitted, but as a big Bellingham fan had wanted to take part. “I feel like he’s a really good idol,” he said. “He is criticised a lot by the media, and I feel like his response to the media is very inspirational for young and upcoming players. So beyond the football, beyond all the goals, I feel he is a really good ambassador for all the young people who look like me, and not even that look like me, to all the young kids that watch on TV. I feel like he is a really good person to look to.” View image in fullscreen Participants in the Jude Bellingham lookalike competition. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/PA Despite being repeatedly complimented on his resemblance to the player during th