That feeling of excitement and trepidation is real – days

Enjoy all the emotions the match will bring – this is a rare experience, writes Luke Edwards

You will have felt it when you woke up this morning and it will have jolted you from your slumber. A stretch, a yawn, a wipe of the eye, and then it will have hit you. That sudden rush of excitement, the buzz of anticipation, a shot of adrenalin 10 times as potent as the coffee that normally fires up the engine on a midweek morning.

No need to give your head a shake, not today. You are awake, alert and ready. No need to drag yourself out of bed, you rise and hum a familiar tune as you head to the bathroom. “It’s coming…”

This is either excitement or trepidation. Surely, you cannot be hit by an attack of pre-match nerves so many hours before kick-off. It is going to be a long day, when the daily routine is accompanied by butterflies, when matters of the mundane seem even less important than usual.

You do not normally start any day expecting history to be made, but today, you can. Maybe, just maybe, this could be a day you never tire of talking about, that you never forget. This might just be the day England head into a World Cup final.

Do not be ashamed. Do not fight it. Do not be embarrassed. This is a day for football. This is a day to get carried away, a day to be proud to be English. Trust me, there will be plenty of them ahead when you are not.

There is much to worry about with Brexit, the economy and our place in the world. Football is, regardless of the famous Bill Shankly quote, not more important than life and death.

Football, any sport, can only ever be a distraction, but for so many of us, there is not a better one than England capturing hearts and minds at a World Cup finals. For those of us hooked on this football drug, the millions of us who fell in love with our national game as children at grounds, big and small, stretching from Northumberland to Sussex, from Cornwall to Kent, this is a moment to be cherished. No matter how many killjoys call for a sense of

Do not be ashamed. Do not fight it. Do not be embarrassed – it is good to invest in something fun