The World Cup is here and the Spaniard in the corner seems to think that Spain will win. I don’t know, but us English are clinging to the hope that our players will show their true colours and prove themselves to be substantially more than the middling players they appeared to be against the USA.

And the World Cup makes every game interesting – even Slovenia versus Algeria. Any other meeting between such nations would not illicit the merest flicker of interest from even the most die-hard football fan. And yet this June we have all been transfixed by these teams – and will be transfixed by many more to come.

It’s funny how watching England can make a hitherto exciting experience turn into an event that is filled with dread. But then, if we didn’t feel the pain of losing, we wouldn’t feel the joy of winning. This, predictably, is like life too. Losing is hard to do, but winning is much harder. I think we sometimes, on some level, choose to lose so we don’t have risk losing what we’ve won. That would be much worse than losing in the first place.

Come on England.