It’s a good feeling when the England football team performs well at a World Cup. Everybody generally seems in better spirits. Commuters are going to work with a smile. Conversations with my colleagues in the office revolves more around the goals than the weather. And the England flags hanging from people’s windows appear to be football rather than white supremacy related.

I wonder if it’s how a Roman villager would have felt 2000 years ago, waking up to find the town crier announcing their army had conquered yet another random part of the world, and was now on its way to another. I don’t know if town criers were a thing in Rome, but without the internet they would have been useful.

I’m not sure why I personally feel good about England winning, as I haven’t done anything to contribute.  But I’ll take the good feeling like a good patriot.

The American World Cup has taken some getting used to. Having games televised so late at night, and in turn having to miss so many is not ideal. But I’m slowly enjoying waking up and checking my phone to discover what happened whilst I was sleeping. It’ll almost be a shame to go back to 3pm kickoffs.

Every news story about Britain seems to be about its decline. And sometimes these aren’t based on facts, people just enjoy putting things down. But thankfully a winning scoreline doesn’t lie and is proof that we at least have something to smile about. Until the next game that is.