His England teammates have been hard at work in training as they prepare to face Serbia on Tuesday night in a tense clash.
Yet life was truly a beach for Jude Bellingham as he lived it up in Sardinia with his model girlfriend Ashlyn Castro, 27, on Friday.
The Real Madrid midfielder, 22, has been out of action since July after undergoing shoulder surgery and has been making the most of his downtime.
Jude and Ashlyn have kept a relatively low profile since their relationship became public in February.
But the pair didn’t shy away from showing off their love for one another as they packed on the PDA at the beach.
The couple couldn’t take their hands off each other as they larked around in the sea and shared a steamy embrace on a sun lounger.
The scale of Jude’s shoulder surgery was made clear after a picture of the Real Madrid star’s scar circulated on social media.
He underwent a successful operation in London to deal with a problem that has been suffering with since November 2023.
The Englishman fell awkwardly and dislocated it during a LaLiga match against Rayo Vallecano.
He delayed going under the knife and was forced to play with his shoulder heavily strapped to prevent extra injury – and told reporters earlier this summer that he was ‘tired of playing with the sling’.
It is understood that Jude will have to wait until at least mid-October to fully recover and be ready to play again.
In the photo the scar can be seen running up most of the 22-year-old’s shoulder.
Posting on Instagram after the surgery, Jude wrote: ‘thank you to Andrew Wallace and Susan Alexander, their team and everyone at Fortius Clinic for the surgery and hospitality.
‘To Ivan Ortega and Dr Leyes for travelling to support. And finally, to everyone else for all the well wishes and messages of love. The process to come back has already started, see you soon.’
The expected rehabilitation time is around three months if all goes well, possibly stretching to four. If the latter reality unfolds, he may be out until as late as November.
Jude and Ashlyn have been seen together on multiple occasions since going public earlier this year.
Last month, at the Bernabeu, they watched a Real game from the stands alongside Bellingham’s mum Denise.
Ashlyn also sat shoulder to shoulder with Denise as the pair watched Madrid star put in a 90-minute shift during England’s 1-0 win against Andorra.
At recent matches, fans suggested that there may be tension between Ashlyn and Jude’s mother but at their latest outing, all seemed well between the two.
The start of Ashlyn’s relationship with Jude was marred by claims about her past along with an escort site hoax.
This led to her taking a four-month break from social media, only returning in June, with Jude quick to react to her post.
She was previously linked with Hollywood actor Michael B Jordan and NBA stars LaMelo Ball and Terance Mann, while a viral video also claimed that she had dated Lewis Hamilton and Jamie Foxx after making tenuous links between social media activity.
In an emotional monologue on TikTok of more than 10 minutes, Ashlyn put to bed several false rumours.
‘I don’t even know where to begin, but I’m going to try my best to just get into it,’ she said in a video that was titled ‘The hardest part is not speaking the truth, but finding the courage to do it’.
She went onto debunk several claims made about her, including allegations of being unfaithful.
‘It makes me super uncomfortable talking on camera about my personal life,’ Ashlyn added. ‘I’ve never even really spoken on camera too many times, so bear with me.
‘Every angle you can think of, people have attacked me, harassed me, been so disrespectful. It’s just been too much.
‘Let’s talk about this dating history. I’ve had three boyfriends over the last eight years. In 2017, I was in my very first relationship and he’s a public figure, so because of that, I’ve dealt with people talking about me, making up things about me.
‘There was nothing on the internet about me prior, so people kind of just made up a bunch of things to justify hating me because of who I was dating at the time.
‘And then over the last six years after that, I’ve dated two people. So three relationships in total.’
