When Baddiel and Skinner penned “Three Lions”, they can’t have imagined that 26 years on people would still be singing the chorus when England played any football match of importance. For a while, the singing of “it’s coming home” was largely ironic, wheeled out at even the mildest of achievements. Routine 5-0 pasting of Andorra? It’s coming home. Three points from an awkward trip to Finland? It’s coming home. Encouraging debut for a promising youngster in an otherwise routine 1-1 friendly draw with Belgium? All together now: “Football’s coming home…”.
More recently the song has been sung with actual belief, as England rise to sit among the favourites in World Cup betting, achieving a semi-final in Russia before making the final of the Euros. All the while, though, football has gone to Italy, to France, to Portugal even, without even making a connecting flight at Heathrow. In that time, the “thirty years of hurt” line has started to sound painfully naive. The total of years since the 1966 triumph now stands at 56. Many bookmakers have England around the top of the World Cup betting odds for 2022, so now is a fair time to ask whether this could be the year it finally comes home.
Are England good enough to win it?
If we’re judging on the basis of Nations League results, football is a very long way indeed from home. Draws have been achieved against Italy and Germany, which is decent. England have also lost 1-0 in Hungary (disappointing) and 4-0 to Hungary at Wembley (alarming). But a lot of teams haven’t done too well in the Nations League, and aren’t panicking. A few games played at the end of a long season aren’t going to be the deciding factor in whether England can win at a tournament they’ll have weeks to prepare for. They’re still highly rated in the odds here at in2bet.com.cy. And they won’t have to play Hungary, which is nice.
How does their group look?
Honestly, they could hardly have hoped for better. There will obviously be some regional bite reserved for their final group game against Wales, but by then England should already have done enough to make the last 16. Iran are the first opponents they’ll face, and their squad is deeply divided over the level of support for coach Dragan Skočić. Then it’s the USA, who are a shadow of some of their former sides. If England have six points by this stage – and they should – then a lot less will rest on the local derby. If push comes to shove England will be favourites in the football betting to beat Wales, though.
Who else could win it?
Another key point is that it’s easy to focus on England’s flaws, which certainly exist, but they won’t be the only team going to Qatar with questions hanging over them. Brazil may be favourites on most World Cup betting sites, but they lost the Copa America to Argentina the last time they were involved in a major tournament, so they’re far from infallible. France are going to be putting a lot on the shoulders of Kylian Mbappe, Germany are in transition and lost the last time they played England at a tournament, and so on. England have the players, and having gone further in the last two tournaments than most, also have the belief. Do we hear football digging out its passport? Maybe.
