Why England are finally ready to deliver on their World Cup destiny

For some of the more superstitious England players, the timing was telling. The first night at their boutique Kansas City base coincided with game five of the NBA finals. A ferocious storm was whirling amid tornado warnings, with Scotland ’s 1-0 win over Haiti also attracting attention, but a few of them made sure to be in place for tip-off.

By the time the New York Knicks sealed a 94-90 win over the San Antonio Spurs to clinch a first championship in 53 years they were jumping around. One player still had the presence of mind to point to the parallels between the storied New York team and England , from the constant noise around them to the tension of that long wait. Arsenal finally winning the title was of course referenced, too.

And as superficial as all of this may seem, it can have genuine substance for players. Such ephemera fosters a belief, a feeling that stars are finally aligning, in a way that can genuinely fortify conviction in actual play.

That it’s their time, too. That it’s fated, with 60 years since their last and only triumph in a World Cup.

Anyone reading this could of course point to multiple previous World Cups where England thought the same, which was almost every time. It plays into a strange back and forth before every tournament. The national football culture’s collective psyche is both constantly built up and always beaten down. Excessive expectation is perpetually tempered by oppressive pessimism; the hope that this one will be different is offset by the fear it’s always the same.

Those years of hurt have since been capped by a decade of even more agonising close calls. Getting so near to glory, in a manner not seen since 1966, has only made the same disappointment all the more exquisite.

The usual emotions, however, shouldn’t cloud rational analysis in the moment. The view among other major countries is that English success just has to happen eventually, even amid mirth at how they never do it. The squad is too good. The country has invested too much, right up to the contract for Thomas Tuchel .

It is actually a kind of reverse alchemy that it hasn’t happened yet. The basic maths should have dictated otherwise. One of the strongest and wealthiest football cultures, with a population of almost 60 million people, has somehow only ever won one major trophy and none in six decades. The banners at the Kansas base saying “Route 66” are both a nicely predictable play on numbers and a little poignant. Even that mythic Wembley win over West Germany doesn’t mean what it did. It’s been too long, the only relevance really in how England are the only World Cup winner to have only ever won that trophy, while also having gone on the longest drought of all former champions.