AOB: Warning, may contain traces of England-related optimism

There's nothing like listening to talkSPORT to boost your world cup fever. Except perhaps reading the Sun, or watching Sky Sports News, who have no doubt been covering the England squad's flight to South Africa in painstaking, high definition, detail. Multiple-camera-angles-of-blokes-getting-onto-an-aircraft ahoy.

Anyway, whatever your tabloid media of choice, it's hard not to get caught up in the hysteria currently being generated around the World Cup. The press went into overdrive yesterday when Fabio Capello named his squad for the tournament, with names leaking into the public domain via Twitter like a tap with a worn-out washer.

As is often the case, in my opinion it was a lot of fuss about nothing, because Capello's selection of squad players is completely irrelevant. I didn't agree with all his decisions - I would've taken Walcott and Parker, and would have left Wright-Phillips and Carrick behind for example - but either way it's unlikely to make much difference. Is there much to choose between Wright-Phillips, Lennon, and Walcott? Not really, they've all had decent games and shocking games for England, so you wouldn't want to rely on any of them to be the difference between winning and losing the trophy.

For me it boils down to this; As usual, England can win the World Cup, but as usual they probably won't. For us to win it, we need everything to go right, and that means all our big players staying injury free and in form. There's no point Lennon playing a blinder if Rooney gets sent off, or Gerrard goes missing, or Ferdinand and Terry doze off and make some kind of catastrophic elementary error. I know it's a team game and all that, but with the squad players being much of a muchness, I don't think the selection posers that Fabio faces will be make or break.

But as I say, I think we can win it. It's not always the best team that goes to the final - look at France in 2006, or Germany in 2002. You just need to get on a run, and have a bit of fortune with the draw, referees, etc. I don't think we have a Zidane or Ballack figure to inspire us on the pitch, but we possibly have one in the dug-out. Now, where did I put my St George's flag?