My sister telephoned me just as the Germany - England match was kicking off.   It's a couple of months since we last spoke, so she wanted a comprehensive catch-up.   Good timing.  

No seriously, good timing.   She knows I have trouble getting fully engaged in an England friendly, especially one immediately prior to a big tournament, and will welcome almost any distraction, even exchange of scan results, details of her pet dog's worming, and the full S.P. on her grandchildren's latest achievements.  

Pretty well any diversion will do when England line up for a pre-tournament kickabout; in the past, I've tidied out the sock drawer, catalogued my collection of self-tapping screws, rearranged my CDs - already ordered alphabetically after the last England friendly - into categories such as soul, funk, country, earnest young men staring at their shoes, '80s Australasians without mullets (just the one), and so on.

For those of us who take a glass-half-empty position when it comes to England - basically anybody who has followed them in any tournament since 1966 - the friendlies, and to an extent the qualifiers, are a lose-lose.  

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