As you know; despite my love of the ‘beautiful game’, I simply couldn’t ‘engage’ with the World Cup. Ok, few snippets on the news, the last 12 minutes of Zaire vs Madagascar, but generally: nyah; can’t be arsed. And then it changed. Wonderfully, totally, fabulously and yes, ENGAGINGLY!!! The reason for this metamorphosis from Johnny Peripheral to THE BIGGEST ENGLAND FAN IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD!!!! is down to just one man. No. He’s no longer a man. He was (in footballing parlance), a ‘legend’. And now he’s just a God. With a capital ‘G’. Because a lot of people don’t believe in God. But after last night; we all believe in Harry Kane. Like Jesus Christ who died to save us; Harry became our national salvation at the end of what had been a rather abysmal game last night in Atlanta. Can’t blame the heat; it was air conditioned. But whilst England were in their customary, first half, nap time, those pesky DRCongolesers scored a goal. And England could seemingly, for the next hour, do nothing in response. But then, cometh the hour, cometh Harry Kane. And he did what he always does, and found a way to score. Like he has on the 70 previous times he’s scored, THIS SEASON. And we were saved. And yet… there was extra time and penalties looming. Hmmmmm… penalties. All English football fans love a penalty shoot-out, even if its not against Germany. GOD HELP US!!!

And he did. The God that is Harry. If the first goal was good, and it really was, the second was the very essence of the purest distillation of every facet of the ‘perfect strike’. And he made it look easy. As brilliantly gifted people always do. Well, there were only 4 defenders on top of him, to make his job easy. I won’t go on. Ok, I’ve already gone on. If you haven’t seen it, you’re not living in England. If you have; you will see a thing of magnificence, worthy of any deity.

I don’t know what’ll happen on Sunday night in Mexico City. 88 games have been held at the Azteca and Mexico have lost only 2. Because it’s intimidating? Because Mexico are great? Or because normal people can’t breathe properly at the high altitude, let alone run around for 90 minutes plus. I suffered altitude sickness in Bogotá. It’s horrible and totally debilitating. You think you have flu. I thought I had flu. Until our plane landed on the coast and I was instantly ‘cured’.

Anyway, England, football, I’m in!

Yet part of my engagement with the tournament was later last night. When I looked to see Belgium 2 nil down to Senegal, 77 minutes played. Oh dear. Goodbye Belgium, the team which has the most superstars but always fails. So I watched the news. And turned back to see it was 2-all and in extra time. That was a wow in itself. But then, just one minute away from penalties, Belgium were awarded a penalty. Holy shit. The VAR didn’t want the responsibility so told the poor ref to look himself and use the judgment of Solomon. He did what he absolutely had to and gave the pen.

Senegal have a bit of form with late penalties. After the one awarded against them in the African Nations final this year, the whole team walked off in protest. Anyway, Youri Tielemans scored, and the Belges won 3-2. Amazing. Exiting. What football should be about.

COME ON ENGLAND!!!!

A xxxx