We forgot to ask Reuben to make his pre-match England prediction, but it looks as if I’ve done him out of a job! I’ll break the bad news to him later, when he wakes up from his eight-hour nap.
He shouldn’t worry too much anyway because my £13.16 winnings will only go towards the cost of his insurance cover for the next year anyway, which will amount to something like nine days. He’s a 16-year-old cat with thyroid cancer on his medical history, along with the vets’ note (and I quote): “This cat is a complete stress head.” I know this for a fact because I saw it on the screen when the vet left the room to get some medication, so he’s on the expensive end of the affordability spectrum these days.
I had a very clear idea of how England’s final group match against Panama would go: we’d be slow and lethargic in the first half, so that enough reactionary fans would have a meltdown at half time when it would still be goalless. Then England would probably grab a couple of goals in the second half to win the game — enough for everyone to be happy yet still have some suppressed angst against Tuchel and some of the players in the bank to be withdrawn at a later date.
It’s not often one of my visions plays out as accurately as this, so it spooked me more than delighted me. Don’t get me wrong, there was some delight in there (I’m not an emotionless moron, don’t listen to Reuben), but I found myself encouraging England players to fluff their shots from 67 minutes onwards, which of course isn’t in the spirit of someone who currently has two England flags fluttering from his upstairs windows.
Could this be our year? The other lucid vision I had for this World Cup was that Argentina would win it, so instinctively I don’t think so. Sixty-four years of hurt is the likely lyric for when we compete in Spain, Portugal and Morocco in 2030 — although, as my wife pointed out, the original lyric of ‘Thirty years of hurt’ isn’t particularly accurate, because what exactly was hurting between 1966 and 1970? The first four of those thirty years Baddiel and Skinner sang about would’ve been quite joyous, I’d have imagined.
Anyway, if I’d lumped on England to beat Panama 2-0 with more than a free £1 bet I’d perhaps know how it feels to be rich. Instead, this is how it feels to be Rich.
Ba-dum-tssh! I only went and involved the title in the article, didn’t I?! What an effort. See, I can write when I really want to!