Put aside the gender issues (our ladies rival Spain and the USA for women’s  bragging rights) we are now in the last four nations in the world cup.

This quote from Betfair , the morning after the night/morning before has us marginally favorite to make the final over Argentina.

But like Spain, we see France as the principal competitors for the World Cup. Incredibly we are now favorites to reach the final but to hold “runners up” medals.

France are out in front.

This is what is troubling our manager who has his sight set on winning the biggest competition of them all. That is something I never thought Robson or Southgate really believed. That’s what I see as the right “temperament”.

For all the talk so far of how far England has come, the truth is we are not playing as if we’d beat France. The temperament will need to be matched by performance in the two matches still to come. I see coming third as an improvement over coming fourth – a podium means a lot!

I am with Tuchel, I was super happy when we won but not how we won.

It was a pretty average performance from both Norway and England. It was summed up by Haaland being taken off for the last fifteen minutes and Kane doing nothing that I can remember.

We had in Anderson, Gordon and especially Bellingham, three players at the top of their game but  a lot of players who looked knackered from the Mexico game – not least our goalie.

I was a proud Glover when Burn came on early in the morning and the 111th minute of the game. A former Yeovil player is enough for my household’s heartbeat to throb a little. He didn’t look too comfy in the heat and humidity, let’s hope for him and the team that the semi-final is less stressful to the players. Only Norway could have suffered more from Miami – everyone will be happy to move to Dallas.

A team intact after health and discipline problems

That there was only one yellow card all game shows how well England and Norway respect the rules and each other.

Yellow cards reset after the group stages and the quarter-finals, we had five but picked up no new ones last night.

Only Jarell Quansah is out for the semi-final (through discipline).

Let’s hope Rice recovers, Jordan Henderson had a freak edge of field accident but otherwise we look to be getting back to full strength in time for Argentina.

One way or another , we had a football team that has remained remarkably intact!

So to my question? Are their teams ahead of England?

I am with the punters in saying that only France are ahead of us and that in the game against Mexico and against the torment of Miami, we showed that we are “resilient”.

My verdict is that we do not have better players than other  England sides have fielded but that we are a better team. This is down to a manager who has got it right and ironically for a country 60 years celebrating a victory over Germans, he is German.

We have never been to an overseas world cup final and I expect us to do so this time. The next game will be dubbed Messi v Bellingham and Kane, but we will win it because of “temperament”.

We should not look back to last night/this morning with great pleasure; it was not Mexico City but thankfully Miami will not be played again. Dallas is next and then New York, each stadium humidified.

Argentina are the best of the South American sides, Morocco the best of the African, there has been no team we will remember from the Middle or Far East. The world order is now European with the exception of Messi’s Argentinian team. I do not think that Messi can be enough any more than Haaland could have been.

Which means that of the four teams left in this tournament, the three best are European. We are a better team than the European sides who have departed (including Switzerland last night). It is no bad thing for England to count itself one of the best three teams in the world for that we justifiably can call us.

I hope this does not come back to bite me but I think the draw fell our way and when we look back, France and England will turn out to be the seeded sides of the tournament I predict to be fighting it out in a few days.

England has one foot on the world cup podium ; we are one of thee stand-out football nations.