Right, so England were actually fun to watch. Go ahead and read that sentence again if you need to. It sounds strange, it feels strange, but here we are.
For years, watching England has been a bit like going to a restaurant where the menu looks incredible and then your meal arrives and it's somehow both overcooked and undercooked at the same time. Talented players, low ambition, cautious setups, and that familiar feeling of waiting for something that never quite arrives. But this time around, something felt genuinely different.
Phil McNulty over at BBC Sport put it well when he described this England as one we haven't seen for years, and that's the thing — it wasn't just that they won, it was the way they went about it. There was intent. There was movement. There was actually a plan that seemed to involve, wild idea this, trying to play forward and make things happen.
The players looked like they were enjoying themselves, which sounds like a low bar but trust anyone who has sat through some of England's more memorable snoozefests — it matters more than people think. When footballers look like they want to be out there, it transfers to the fans, and for once the England faithful had something to genuinely get excited about rather than just nervously chew their fingernails down to nothing.
Now, let's be fair here because blind optimism has burned England fans before, many many times. One good performance does not a tournament winning side make, and there will be tougher tests ahead where the old habits might creep back in. The real question is whether this is a genuine shift in identity or just one of those nights where everything clicked and everyone got a bit carried away.
But even the most cautious observer would have to admit that this was encouraging. It was the kind of England display that makes you actually want to watch the next one, and for a long time that simply has not been the case.
Let me know your thoughts.