So Saturday shall arrive. The sun shall shine. The afternoon shall be long and two Northern European teams shall do unto each other ball shaped things in Samara in deepest Russia.
And it’s a good old fashioned 3pm kick off in this country as well so what more could you want from football?
Now passage past the Swedes will not be easy. Traditionally this is the one Scandinavian country that gives England immense problems and over the years they have become a bit of the proverbial bogey team.
Twenty four games have been played in total with it being fairly equal overall. There have been 8 England wins, 7 Sweden wins and 9 draws. England have scored 38 and conceded 32.
However the bogeyness of it all shows through when the chips are down and it means something. In those cases England have won just 1 game out of 8 attempts. But then that was the last time they played a game that meant something - 3:2 in the 2012 Euros.
Expecting another hard struggle. Expecting another difficult and frustrating time of it as England look for that little bit of something somewhere that can unlock what is going to be a well packed and well organised Swedish team.
Overall another penalty shootout wouldn’t be a surprise to be honest but just once it would be wonderful if England could find that bit of creativity and look the part of possible WC winners to give everyone’s belief a little bit of a push in the right direction.
And at least Sweden won’t try it on like Colombia
