IT has started, it being the English media's post-World Cup expulsion witch hunt. Predictably, the first target for the ire of the paper tigers is Roy Hodgson, a fine man, a good, experienced manager, asked, by the silly system of English football, to try to make bricks without straw.
Thankfully, Greg Dyke, the FA Honcho, has been quick to back his manager, in a statement which was emphatic and by no means the usual "chairman's 100% backing", which normally sets-off negotiations around a settlement package to lever the manager out.
Hodgson will be staying, which is good news for England. He has done a great job in tempering the usual: "Here we go, here we go, here we go", bullish English approach to major championships with long-overdue realism.
It is his misfortune to have an England squad which is composed of a few great players - on the downward slope: Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney, plus some promising kids: Sturridge, Sterling, Oxlade-Chamberlain, but lacking genuine World Class, top of their game talent.
I know some will insist that Rooney is World Class. I disagree. He threatened to become thus when he burst on the scene, but, he has not trained-on to become anything more than a player who operates well in the biff, bang, bosh, relatively unsophisticated world of the FA Premiership, but has repeatedly proved himself incapable of that step-up to become a genuine threat on football's biggest stage.
Received knowledge in team-building is - you build a strong spine: goalkeeper, central defensive and midfield organisers and a prolific striker, then you fill-in around these four key men. When England won the World Cup (what do you mean when? - Haven't you heard? They beat West Germany in 1966, but, being English, they never mention it), they had in Gordon Banks and Bobby Moore the best goalkeeper and central defence organiser in the world; Bobby Charlton was one of the three best midfielders, and Jimmy Greaves one of the three best strikers.
They filled-in around there brilliantly, Ray Wilson was arguably the world's best left-back, George Cohen only slightly less a defender; Jackie Charlton was a top-flight "stopper" centre-half, Nobby Stiles was probably the best manmarker around at the time, while Alan Ball and Martin Peters offered width, energy and skill, while Roger Hunt did the unselfish running and supporting for Greaves - and Hurst, who had the dream final of dream finals.
No wonder, with home advantage, England won - that team, under an astute manager, was always going to be in at the sharp end of 1966.
If you had been picking a Best of the First Division XI in 1966, Banks, Wilson, Moore, Charlton and Greaves were shoo-ins, along with George Best and four Scots from about 15. If you were picking a Best of the English Premiership XI today, not a single Englishman would make the final XI.
That collapse in the face of the buy-foreign policy of the Premiership clubs, is the biggest hurdle Hodgson has to fight against.
Until the FA follows the RFU's line and makes it mandatory for their top-flight clubs to have a high percentage of England-qualified players in their squads, then England will qualify. And, don't give me the old: "EU laws mean we cannot insist on English players being prioritised - it's hogwash.
If Rugby's Aviva Premiership, the top-flight in England, can insist on 75% of each club's squad being "England-qualified", with the result that England is today, albeit in a smaller field, the leading country in Europe, then why cannot the FA Premiership make a similar demand of their member clubs?
This same question, by the way, can and should be asked about Scotland.
Until British football starts pushing British footballers and giving them a platform on which to improve, then England - who through sheer volume of numbers, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, will see their status in world football deminish.
Meanwhile, the World Cup goes on, and, once we get down to the knock-out phase, I will start to make-up my mind about which country I fancy to win it. As yet, it's too-early to say, other than, I fear the pressure of ex[ectation being heaped on them, may cause Brazil to implode dramatically.
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