Enjoying the World Cup? Well it’s time for England, but this is a team less weighed down by its past | Barney Ronay

Nice World Cup you’ve got there. Be a shame if something … happened to it. The opening acts of this bloated, roided-up summer tournament have been surprisingly fun, light and sparky. Surprising, that is, if you’ve absorbed much of its doom-laden buildup. Football always does this. There is a reason this sport has become humanity’s great brain-wipe distractor ray, the tool of mega-brands and jumped-up administrators with a Football Jesus fetish. You can stretch it thin, loan it out to despotic regimes. But the games will still be good. Football remains an indestructible substance. So we’ve had joy and Cape Verdean tears , bow tie-twirling host nation razzmatazz, fans who seem, of all things, just happy to be here. In the United States the World Cup has felt like just another high functioning element of the leisure-sphere. It’s David Beckham selling chainsaws, crisps and beer. It’s Chuck Flipburger beaming into a camera outside the Anusol Megadrome saying: “Spain’s super-duper-star Lamine Yarrmaarrrl.” Even the games have been fearless and flowing and not, for example, dominated by a weird sense that everyone has their legs on backwards, that the ball is filled with helium and fear, that the whole experience is analogous to stabbing yourself in both eyes with a knitting needle made from pork-pie meat and self-loathing. Yeah, well. Enjoy that while you can. You can sit there playing with your silly little machines as much as you like. I’ll show you a World Cup. …