THIS is the way it will be: England will win the World Cup. The victory parade has already been arranged and millions will line the streets of London. The Queen will await our conquering heroes at Buckingham Palace gates doing a little shimmy of delight by a sentry box.

The Mall will be decked with flags of St George and to hell with anyone who thinks it might be racist.

Let's face it Germany have their worst side since Escape To Victory; Brazil and Argentina are over confident, overrated and over here; the Dutch players hate each other as always; the French are creakingly old; Spain will under achieve; Portugal is a long thin country with a flimsy team and we all know from Sven-Goran Eriksson what the Swedes get up to.

So there we are, no problem.

The papers are full of it, we carry the short odds: We can win.

Oh, I see it now. The qualifying group is a doddle. Paraguay is the kind of country that Michael Palin visits as a curiosity and Trinidad and Tobago will be bombed out of their heads, man.

That gives us a second-round tie against Poland and we always beat them.

Holland step up for the quarter finals and if we can't beat a nation that grows tulips for a living then it's a sorry state of affairs.

So to Brazil and their sodding samba rhythm in the semis. Well, it's time isn't it? They always beat us, but the law of averages has to kick in some time and Ronaldo is now fat enough for Terry to keep pace.

By my reckoning that will bring us to Italy in the final and I am afraid their best weapon went when their judiciary rumbled what was going on in the brown envelope department and they pulled their referee from the World Cup.

Sitting here, I just can't see us losing can you? This is, after all, England.

We have our finest players for 36 years and it does not matter that the best of the crop won't be playing because the others are that good.

What does it matter if we have a manager who has spent five years looking for other employment while inspiring the team to such victories as against Argentina and Germany, er, four years ago. We are going to win.

We know we are because it is an English trait to believe we are as good as we should be and not as good as we actually are.

A consistent high-level performance? Well, we dominate so many matches don't we, and anyway who needs it when we have Plan A which, briefly, is: It will be all right on the night.

There is no confusion. What is confusing about a team being sent out to prove themselves the best in the world with the instruction: 'Right, lads, keep your fingers crossed.'

We can ignore all evidence contrary to positive thinking - Denmark, Northern Ireland, Wales - and indulge a manager who, after five years, suddenly decides, with three meaningless friendlies to go, he needs a holding player and gives the position to our fourth-best centre half who says he cannot play in the position and can name better players for the job himself.

Meanwhile, our alternative striker is a 17-year-old kid who the manager has never seen, says is too young for the World Cup and still picks anyway.

And yet.. and yet... pessimistic, bitter and resentful cynic that I am I know the knots in my stomach will get tighter the longer we remain in the competition.

My head says we have the players capable of winning the competition, but will go out in the second round or the quarters.. Sadly, that is Eriksson's limit, not the team's.

But my heart reminds me that I know all the other teams ain't good enough to beat us, that, yes, we will come good on the night. It's the curse of the English. We know we are superior. Arrogant gits, we may be, but we just need all the other teams to acknowledge it too. One day, they will.