That feeling of excitement and trepidation is real – days like this need to be embraced

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

perspective, they will not be heard – they are shouting for calm in the middle of a hurricane.

Whatever the result of England’s semi-final against Croatia, all the same problems will still exist, all the same concerns will be there, the issues that really matter will remain in the morning. But for a few hours, at least, we can invest our emotion and energy in something more trivial, more fun.

Embrace it. Whatever happens in Moscow this evening, whether Croatia prove too good, whether England come up short, whether they are crushed, or feel aggrieved at the end of an undeserved defeat, Gareth Southgate and his team have given their country a reason to cheer.

It has already been a fantastic World Cup, a brilliantly barmy summer of sporting enjoyment. Yet it could be so much more.

In years to come, we will always remember this team reaching this semi-final. Those of us old enough to have witnessed the last one, in Italy in 1990, know these opportunities do not come along very often. However, immortality awaits tonight if they are victorious.

Just like the Englishmen who won the World Cup in 1966, it is the generations who follow who will idolise them, long after we are gone, if they go on to become world champions.

That is what is at stake and that is why you woke up with that feeling this morning.

Who knows how long it will be until you experience it another time, but hopefully we will do it all over again on Sunday ahead of the final.