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GUESSING the outcome of a World Cup is never easy. But as far as this latest one is concerned, there’s one thing I can predict with some confidence.

Namely, no-one’s going to try and nick the trophy.

That’s because the security surrounding it right now is so tight. And you wouldn’t want to mess with the guys in charge of that…

It’s all rather different from the way things were in 1966, when the tournament was held in England – and when, yep, the trophy (the original) really did get pinched.

This extraordinary episode is recalled tonight in Channel 4’s documentary WHO STOLE THE WORLD CUP? (10pm).

Narrated in a nicely geezerish style by veteran actor Alan Ladd, it’s a breezy take on a tale that almost beggars belief – not so much because this crime was carried out with precision and expertise, then investigated by some of the sharpest detectives in the business, but precisely because it was none of those things.

In nearly every respect — from the fact the cup was put on display at a stamp exhibition, where security was hopeless, to the fact the crims and the cops were equally clown-like – it’s a story you can only chuckle at.

Plus, of course, it was a dog who became the story’s hero, by finding the blooming thing in a bush.

“It’s like Lassie meets The Italian Job meets some kind of Ealing comedy,” says contributor Tom Pettifor, the Daily Mirror’s Crime Editor and the man who finally solved the riddle the title poses.