Last night’s win against Croatia saw Kane, already England’s all-time top scorer, extend his lead to 91 goals and equal Peter Shilton’s appearance record of 125 caps, all without winning anything at all.

England fan Nathan Muir said: “That is a record of personal achievement and collective non-achievement I can’t imagine any foreigners equalling. Harry is right to be proud.

“Look at Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, for example: 176 international caps, yes, but he also won the World Cup in 2006. Ronaldo? An incredible 146 goals, but a record marred by winning Euro 2016 and two Nations Leagues.

“Harry’s achievement is all the more impressive when you consider the context. He’s achieved that within a team which is by any measure a failure. Honestly I think he’s on course to beat Ali Daei of Iran, and we all know what a legend he is.

“Such a shame he left Tottenham. With them he could have excelled while winning nothing at club level too. Still, winning the Bundesliga with Bayern is almost the same.”

Kane said: “Every day, I curse the gods for making me English.”

Steve Malley, organ courier: “The ultimate sanction: a year in the Championship, a two-year transfer ban and a massive fine paid by the owners not the club so it doesn’t affect our budget. Shit. I meant ‘their budget’.”

Helen Archer, architect: “League Two, massive fines, all decent players sold but Pep to manage them. I will see him broken. Broken like St Catherine on a wheel.”

Martin Bishop, supply teacher: “Sorry, would it be alright if I punish Manchester United instead? It’s just they’re the baddies.”

Mary Fisher, vegetable exporter: “Their licence revoked, their stadium razed to the ground, and their pitch sown with salt until they are entirely forgotten. Which given the strength of local support should be about two years.”

Ellie Shaw, piano tuner: “Hey, come on, they’ve not cheated since 2018! Or that’s the last year we have documentation proving they cheated. Sure it’s the same thing.”

Premier League 2011-12, 2013-14, 2017-18

With three trophies available, if awarded to the runners-up two would go to Manchester United and one would go to Liverpool. But nobody likes Manchester United or Liverpool and the world shudders at the thought of José Mourinho receiving a post-dated trophy.

Consequently the first will go to Chelsea, giving them the league and Europe double their money richly deserved, the second goes to Leicester City to make their 2016 win less implausible, and the final one goes to Arsenal as a retirement present for Arsene Wenger following the 2012 precedent of doing the same for Sir Alex Ferguson.

FA Cup 2010-11

No arguments here. Stoke City were the losing finalists in that FA Cup final, have never won a major trophy and have long deserved one. They’ve earned it because without them we’d have no yardstick to test whether fancy foreign footballers could still do it on a wet Tuesday night in an absolute shithole. Thank you, Stoke, for your service.

League Cup 2013-14, 2015-16, 2017-18

Difficult. Based on finalists, the first should go to Sunderland, the second to Liverpool and the third to Arsenal. But any trophy going to Sunderland would immediately bring English football into disrepute and the other two have said they’re fine without it.

The decision has therefore been made to award all three to the fictitious club Melchester Rovers, with goals scored by Rocky Race, Neymar and Louis Tomlinson, and the hope is that US buyers will make huge bids and allow the FA to boost earnings by promoting an invented club overseas, following the example of Wrexham.

Community Shield 2012-13

To be given away to one lucky winner in a competition on cans of Coca-Cola.

Champions League

Didn’t win any. Shame.

Mentioned in first five minutes: check

Just as navigating any conversation past the rock of veganism was once impossible, now it’s padel. Regardless whether you’re discussing politics, the weather or this year’s Strictly line-up being weaker than homeopathic piss, within less than 300 seconds it’ll be about padel. Apparently it gives Cach Mercer an advantage.

Confers aura of superiority: check

Like veganism, padel is more than it seems. You thought it was a diet/bat and ball game? It’s so much more than that. Padel is a way of life, perhaps the way of life, that delivers physical perfection, mental calm and ultimately, its adherents hint, immortality.

Supersedes all previous convictions: check

Pickleball? A game for children and Americans, now wisely put away. Peloton? A mere lockdown infatuation. Podcasts? A waste of one’s precious life, especially when nobody listens to yours. Veganism? Ultimately unsustainable in a world of bacon and Brie. Padel? The path, the light, the sum of all human happiness. You play?

Follows arcane rules no outsiders understand: check

The rules of padel? Ah, the rules of padel. Yes, I’m glad you asked that. The rules. Ultimately you’ve really got to actually play padel to understand it, like I do, so it would be pointless to explain them like it was pointless explaining how cutting animal products from my diet would make me eternally virtuous. You have to feel it.

Not actually even that good: check

Isn’t it just tennis? No, definitely not, even if it shares a court, the bulk its of rules and a scoring system. No, padel is so much better than mere tennis, much as veganism was superior to vegetarianism until it got boring. Padel is a quantum leap beyond mere sports. It’s actually saved our marriage. What do you mean, you tried it and it was shite?

Will soon be dropped like pulled pork: not quite yet

There’s no way the preachers of padel will move on, absolutely none. You’re saying that because you’re jealous. Yes, we have moved on from our previous obsessions with street food, Secret Cinema, cocktails, microdosing, Union Berlin and paddleboarding but padel is different. You just wait and see if it isn’t.

Inhale at junctions

It’s fine to inhale nitrous oxide and drive, because it just makes you laugh! It’s just laughter and good times like you’re in a car with friends, not entirely alone and without a football club. But the balloon can get in the way of your vision, so wait until the lights or, on the motorway, a straight stretch. Think of others!

Employ cruise control

The Lamborghini Urus is flagship so already comes tricked out with all the options. To stop yourself worrying about your speed, simply set cruise control and let the pedals look after themselves while you worry about steering and getting another lungful of giggle gas!

Use the whole road

Once you’re a few whippets in, your perceptions will expand. As a gifted footballer I saw the whole pitch, nipping into pockets of space to score, and as a talented driver I’m the same. Central reservation? Lay-by? It’s all road to the committed man and his quarter-of-a-million sports car! Though I didn’t see the shit in the lay-by I crashed into, check for that.

Remember not everyone’s in on the joke

While you’re pissing yourself racing along at 80mph, breaking into new fits of laughter every time you almost hit a Kia Ceed, keep in mind that your judgement may be impaired. Other drivers, due to sense of humour failure or lack of nitrous, may take it rather too seriously. Sad for them obviously, but be kind.

Offer the police a balloon

Finally, when the police pull you over, don’t make my mistake. I was so concerned about where my next huff would come from I forgot to be generous! Offer your PC a pull and soon he’ll be laughing along with you, and will let you off with a caution and a cheery wave! So next time you’re driving your Lambo on laughing gas, do what I didn’t.

Yes, in this country cricket may not be a sport anyone but red-faced all-day drinkers care about, but it has an international following. Wages are good, your memoir will sell and best of all you can get as pissed as you like without consequence.

Football? Its drinking days are over. You’ll earn millions, but you’ll be living on steamed chicken and rice until you’re 40. And your club will force you to marry your childhood sweetheart and have five kids to boost your stability and transfer value.

But cricket? While the sport may be sedate, it’s played by true wildmen. Look at Brydon Carse, handcuffed outside a Derby nightclub. In the background? Ben Stokes, who was straight out on the piss after winning the first test against New Zealand.

And that’s after Harry Brook got punched by a bouncer in NZ last winter and the whole team was out getting wrecked in Australia. It’s a global stag do that never ends.

The game itself? You’d have to be smashed to even understand it. A level of hungover befuddlement is the ideal accompaniment to playing cricket. You won’t understand what’s going on but nor will you care. And if it rains you’ll be sinking pints before noon.

So if you’re sporty but can’t be arsed with all that clean living bollocks, pick up a bat and give cricket a try. Cheating encouraged. All applicants must be cheerful losers.

Optimism

He’s Spanish, or Argentinian, or Brazilian, and he scored eight in Georgia’s Erovnuli Liga last year so this is clearly a next-level signing. He can’t help but be an incredible find by your club’s expert scouts and £30 million will be a bloody bargain when he takes us into the Champions League.

Denial

He needs match fitness. He was shit on his debut, admittedly, and subbed off the game after but early days. Ignore the fact he’s a professional athlete with f**k all to do all week but work on his fitness. How out of condition can you be when you’re running around all day, being watched every second in the gym and on a closely monitored diet?

Bargaining

It’s hard to adapt to another country and the weather’s not like it is at home. Never mind that he has an army of people looking after him, lives in a massive house and his girlfriend, mother and little sister are all here too. Perhaps he needs to adjust to our style of play? It’s so different to other clubs, definitely not all about kicking the ball between those two posts.

Anger

F**king well injured now. Bloody prima donna pulled up with his hamstring or ACL or some other medical phrase you claim to understand like an expert even though you don’t have basic first aid. He’ll be off for eight weeks, long enough for you to forget his underwhelming performances so far and build him up to be the next Rodri again.

Depression

First game back, sent off. Pissing joker left you down to ten men at Old Trafford and you got battered as a result. Two-match ban incoming. F**k it. Time to start shouting about how shit he is.

Acceptance

Loaned out to Preston North End. By now you’d almost forgotten he was on the club’s books. Signed in August, on his way down the footballing ladder by spring. Never mind, he’s bound to come back next season better for the playing experience. Are we still paying his £130k a week wages? F**k’s sake.

Roy Hobbs, costermonger: “Great thing about Spennymoor vs Merthyr is you can be confident Trump won’t call the ref halfway through a game demanding a red card be rescinded.”

Norman Steele, troubadour: “People characterise non-league players as muddy cloggers. Not this year. Southend vs Scunthorpe this afternoon will be all dust clouds and snapped ankles.”

Billy McKay, footballer: “Ah bollocks. This is a terrible time to remember I’m a much-loved but aging left-back for Banks o’ Dee FC.”

Sophie Rodriguez, token woman: “They say you can’t change your club, but I switched allegiance from Hemel Hempstead Town to Hednesford Town and not one person gives a shit.”

Steve Malley, door security: “Hmmm. And which would you recommend for pairing with overheated, pent-up violence?”

Pick up the ball 

This involves bending down and tossing your ball out of the rough and onto the fairway. Is it in fact the oldest trick in the book and just blatant cheating? No. It requires great golfing skill when you’re grossly overweight and one wrong sudden move could result in a horrific nappy incident.

Only play in your own tournaments

Not everyone owns their own golf course, but who cares about other people? Tell your golf club staff they’ll all be fired if you lose and inform other players they’ll be barred from future events if they beat you. Does this count as ‘winning’ in any meaningful sense? It does if you think you won a Nobel Peace Prize by bullying a woman into giving you hers.

Own the fastest golf cart 

It’s been widely reported that I own an unusually fast golf cart that allows me to arrive at the balls long before other players. Is this related to my known habit of hurling their balls into lakes and the rough? No, I just like to keep up the pace so I can get back to important presidential tasks like completely defeating Iran, again.

Threaten legal action 

If you’re losing, angrily tell your opponent you’ve seen him cheating and you’ll be suing him for $10 billion. When he denies it and says no one has ever done that over a game of amateur golf, point out the stress and cost of hiring a lawyer will ruin his life anyway. He’ll quickly realise you are the superior golfer. 

Play by yourself

On a new course I always play the very first round alone and immediately put my name at the top of the winners’ board. Is this a completely hollow achievement, like saying you’re successful with women because you keep groping them and using the services of a sex trafficker? I don’t think so, and I have no idea why I thought of those examples. 

Take over your opponent’s ball 

Not many people realise you can start using your opponent’s ball if it’s closer to the hole than yours. Whenever I’ve been seen doing this people have complained that you can’t do that in golf, but only the top players know this elite rule. I’m ranked number one in the world, by the way. I have been since 1980.

Open your nappy 

Make your opponent fluff crucial shots by standing close to him and stretching wide the elasticated waistband of your adult nappy, the liquid and solid contents of which have been sweatily brewing since breakfast. There is nothing in PGA rules that says you can’t do this.

‘Shit midfielder anyway, no defensive instinct’ 

Sure, he was banging in worldies from all angles last season, but what about when he misplaced two passes in five minutes against Sunderland, or lost the ball in a tackle that led to a goal? You’re glad he’s gone. No way will a much better defence mean he scores twice against you in the FA Cup and knocks you out.

‘Can’t turn down that kind of money’ 

£117m for Morgan Rogers? Daylight robbery. Tell yourself how well your club will reinvest this eye-watering sum. Ignore that no player worth that will ever sign for Villa because, despite everything, they remain a bit shit and their best chance of winning the Premier League died in April 2021 when the European Super League was cancelled.

‘It’s a chance for our youngsters’

That 17-year-old out on loan at Doncaster? He looked class in League One, bring him back and give him his chance at elite level. He’s a homegrown talent, so the fans will love him too. What? He’s not quite able to match the performance of the Brazilian international you sold? What a disappointment. Slag him off mercilessly online.

‘If he doesn’t want to wear the badge f**k him’ 

Football fans refuse to understand being a professional footballer is a job. While knowing if another employer offered to double their salary they’d be gone, they still childishly believe their team is the best and Swedish players here for the money should recognise that. Disloyalty will never be forgiven, and also Salah’s shit now, ship him out, no regrets.

‘Game’s gone’ 

When the above fail, convince yourself you’ve fallen out of love with football. It’s not what it was in your youth, when Manchester United used to win things. It’s over as far as you’re concerned, though since you’ve paid a grand on a season ticket you might as well go along anyway to hate every minute of it. Maybe Tielemans will work out. You never know.

Judging by how Tuchel’s squad hammered France 6-4, supporters are convinced they would have totally trounced Spain in the final, so they are the real World Cup champions if you think about it.

Martin Bishop said: “We smashed France in a game they didn’t care about, so winning by a dozen goals is hardly wishful thinking. We just needed a chain of pivotal events to go our way.

“If we didn’t piss away our lead in the semi-final by playing defensively, if Messi hadn’t been born, and if Argentina was never formed as a nation-state in 1816, football would be coming home right now. We were so, so close.

“Then victory against Spain would’ve been a certainty. Kane and Bellingham would’ve breezed a few hat tricks into the back of the net in the first ten minutes. Even Pickford would’ve headered a couple in by half time.

“Beckham would probably have invaded the pitch to score a few too. Then FIFA would’ve given us the World Cup to keep forever and the ghost of Sir Bobby Charlton would’ve accepted it on our behalf.

“This only didn’t happen because Argentina are nasty, shirt-pulling bastards. It was just bad luck really.”

Nathan Muir, bathroom fitter: “What do England consistently win at? Rugby? Cricket? Formula One? Tennis? None of them? F**k it, I’m getting bang into the arts.”

Eleanor Shaw, DVD restorer: “Actually, I’m now completely addicted to the feeling of agonising, eviscerated defeat, that horrible sinking sensation of all your hopes lying dismembered on the floor. So I think dog-fighting.”

Denys Finch Hatton, website moderator: “It’s got to be kabaddi. There’s no media coverage, no teams anywhere near me, and I don’t know the rules so I wouldn’t know if we’d lost. Bliss.”

Sophie Rodriguez, graduate student: “You’ve heard of Ultimate Fighting Championship? I’m into Penultimate Fighting Championship. It’s just the part where their mates try to separate them saying ‘it’s not worth it’.”

Norman Steele, actuarial calculator: “You know there’s Rugby Union and Rugby League? I’ve invented a third one: Rugby Unami.”

Organising a stag do

Strippers and a bar crawl? Too predictable. The last night of freedom should be a taste of married life. My itinerary involves a trip to IKEA on a Sunday afternoon, then an argument over something trivial when the groom is trying to get to sleep. I’ll only invite his exes, and I’ll keep everyone entertained by sleeping with his bride-to-be.

Parallel parking

Neatly slotting your car into a row of vehicles is boring and takes forever. I much prefer to get 80 per cent of the way there, then reverse over the car behind me, set fire to my vehicle, then walk away without leaving my insurance details. Back-seat drivers can criticise me all they want, but at the end of the day the other cars were better and wanted it more.

Ordering a takeaway

Apps have made ordering a mid-week Chinese far too straightforward. For the best results you’re better off phoning them from somewhere with terrible signal while having no idea what you want from the menu. As for your delivery address, give them vague instructions then get pissed off when they’re understandably annoyed. The terrible decision I made to only order spring rolls can hardly be pinned on me.

Defusing a bomb

Common sense would suggest you evacuate the area and alert bomb disposal experts who can snip the right wires. Where’s the fun in that though? It would be much better to put the explosive in a suitcase and try to take it through an airport scanner. Security could do with some excitement and will surely thank you for livening up their day.

Breaking up with someone

Only cowards follow the playbook of finding a quiet place, gently telling your partner how you feel, then thanking them for your time together. My strategy is all about shock and awe. I dump them halfway through a candlelit dinner, show them the matches I’ve already got on dating apps, and finish off by hitting on the waitress. Sounds crazy but it gets results. Tearful, tearful results.

The manager

Thomas Tuchel was hired on the specific understanding he would not bollocks up a semi-final by going defensive and making the wrong substitutions. He did exactly that. Is it not, then, entirely his fault that Argentina scored twice in seven minutes? It clearly is. He should resign and walk into the wilderness to meditate on his failure until death.

The referee

Normally, England are victim to an outrageously biased refereeing decision the match turns upon so it is all the referee’s fault. This did not happen last night, and in a way does that not make it the referee’s fault? For not redressing a historical imbalance and sending Enzo Fernández off for nothing early doors, did he not condemn England to failure?

Gianni Infantino

Clearly wanted US-based so-called ‘best player ever’ Messi in the final, to promote football to rich Americans who’ve ruined baseball and basketball for themselves. Was it his bald Mr Bean face there in the stands, sneering at us, that caused England to become overly defensive for the last 30 minutes?

Mick Jagger

Talking of twats in the stands. The camera kept cutting to the sagging, bloodhound-retired-on-health-grounds face of the Rolling Stones singer, thoroughly jaded at what he was seeing. Sorry it wasn’t good enough for you, Sir Mick. No wonder England were as exhausted as your girlfriend trying to coax an erection out of you under that glare.

Margaret Thatcher

There’s bad blood between England and Argentina, and that’s down to her. Thatcher, who seized on the Falklands invasion to boost her flagging popularity, gave the team ample motivation to beat us not just in 1986 but in every game since. Why couldn’t the big-haired bitch have settled things diplomatically?

Adolf Eichmann

The architect of the Holocaust spent a decade in Argentina spreading his anti-British views, a poison which directly led to Lautaro Martinez’s 92-minute winner last night. Also to blame: Germany, Catholic bishops and by extension the entire Catholic church and the Pope, US counterintelligence and the US itself. All must go so England can win.

Last night’s 2-1 defeat by Argentina does not matter in any way because grown men running around in shorts kicking a ball is ridiculous and pointless when you think about it.

England manager Thomas Tuchel said: “Argentina may have got the ball in the net twice, but what does that prove? They’re good at kicking round things at bits of string? That’s useful – not.

“It’s not as if they did something amazing like inventing the jet engine. Football isn’t even a proper sport anyway. Not like golf, that takes real skill. I’d like to see Fernández get the ball in a hole that wasn’t the size of a caravan.”

Team captain Harry Kane said: “None of the lads were bothered about winning anyway. For us it’s just a fun way of keeping fit. I spoke to Anthony Gordon earlier and he’d forgotten we even had a match last night.

“The trophy’s really tacky and you’re not allowed to keep it anyway. If someone gave that to me I know where I’d put it – in the bin.”

Speaking from Atlanta, England fan Martin Bishop said: “I actually find it quite sad when people take football too seriously. Like Argentina. What a bunch of losers.”