The English media and public are getting quite carried away by their presence in the World Cup quarter finals and what has been loosely termed, the easier side of the draw. And I guess you can't really blame them.
The fact of the matter is that one of the World Cup finalists will actually come from Russia, Croatia, Sweden and England, to play the winners of France and Belgium. The scale of the upsets for favourties so far is unprecedented, with Brazil the latest former winner to be defeated, following Germany, Spain and Argentina's earlier exits. Well to be fair., Brazil have actually won it five times before - more than any other nation. But from the six teams left, four have never won a World Cup and France is the only side to have managed that feat in the past 50 years.
So if the formbook has really been thrown out of the window, perhaps there is some logic after all to England's march to the last eight, with the country preparing to grind to a halt at 3pm local time this afternoon - which in a neat touch is the regular Saturday afternoon kick off time for football across the country, so the fans will at least be able to get a good few hours of drinking under their belts first. If they lose, expect riots, bad behaviour and general flipping of parked vehicles and if they win, well expect much the same.
As for the match itself against Sweden, well just like England, there are no real superstars in that line up, now that Zlatan has retired from the international scene. Just like England, they seem to work hard for each other and their style of play, in a reversal of what England fans have been served up over the past 25 years, is somewhat less ambitious. As England coach Gareth Southgate points out, Sweden win games with 30 percent possession. Being caught on the counter attack is something to be guarded against as the Young Lions go for it, emboldened by their first ever successful World Cup penalty shoot out - against Colombia, which meant that the country that has been ravaged by a cocaine epidemic and trade in illegal guns actually won, but perhaps that's just a cheap shot at the UK government's record on crime in 2018.
So can England do it and make the Semi Finals for the first time since Gazza's tears at the Delle Alpi, Turin at Italia 90. What's that ? Delle Ali for first goalscorer. Well you heard it here first, but if anything, the odds should be pretty good !
