It's crunch time. And we are involved. The nation is expectant. Scouts is cancelled. The kids can go to school wearing red and white. Whilst this is, of course, a text-book set-up for them to feel the crushing disappointments that the rest of us have endured for, well, our whole lives - this time it IS different. We have a resilience, and to a degree, some humble-ness. The game against Norway was a strange one. We started exactly how I hoped we would, in control, patient, conserving energy. But somewhere along the line it all went weird and we pretty much thrashed around, waiting for Bellingham to do something awesome. I've been really confident about England's chances - I thought we were set up to perform as a sum of our parts, but it hasn't quite clicked properly yet. But there is time, and our game against Argentina is going to be epic I am sure. They, with us, are on the 'scraping by' side of the draw; whilst attention tonight is upon the 'brushing ever...
View and opinion on the FIFA World Cup from both sides of the Atlantic. We know that this time, it really might come home.