The anticipation of a first World Cup semi-final for 28 years has reached fever pitch both in Russia and back home as Gareth Southgate attempts to emulate the heroes of 1966

Put out more flags. Remove the creases from your St George’s Cross jester’s hat. Prepare to launch a pint of lukewarm lager towards the ceiling. England are ready to go again.

On Wednesday night Gareth Southgate’s team will walk out at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow to play England’s first World Cup semi-final in 28 years. Their opponents Croatia are ranked six places lower by Fifa. For Southgate and his players a moment of rare sporting crisis awaits.



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If the last few days have been marked by a feeling of gathering English hysteria, not to mention booze-sodden escapism as the rest of the country energetically falls to bits, then it is worth noting these moments don’t come around very often.



The last time England got this far was Italia 90, when Margaret Thatcher was still in power, Jeremy Corbyn was in court for not paying the poll tax and England fans in Turin had to phone long distance from a call-box to have any idea what was going on back home.



Should they get past Croatia Southgate’s players will return to Moscow on Sunday for what would be England’s first world Cup final since 1966 and all that: an event so jealously seared into popular culture – the Empire Stadium, Nobby dancing, Bobby Moore wiping his hands before shaking the Queen’s white glove – it seems almost an act of heresy to think about matching it.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gareth Southgate attends England’s press conference alongside Jordan Henderson. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Win or lose the most remarkable part of England’s run in Russia is the sense of shared public affection. Through four weeks in Russia, from Volgograd to Samara, the players have emerged as a hugely likeable crew and a flattering reflection of the country at large – clever, diligent, funny, and agreeably diverse in their backgrounds.



Plus of course there is Southgate, who in the last few weeks has seemed at times like the only person left in charge of anything who looks like he actually knows what he’s doing.



Nobody expected any of this. Perhaps that's why it feels so glorious

On Tuesday afternoon it was standing room only for the manager’s last public appearance before the final, the air in the Luzhniki press room thick with excitement, event-glamour and the effects of four weeks on the road with minimal laundry opportunities.



Cameras whirred, necks craned. Somebody fell over at the back. And finally there he was, the great Gareth. And yes it is just Gareth now: role model, dreamboat and all-round sun king of Russia 2018. Gareth wasn’t wearing his waistcoat here, or his “sleeveless suit staple” as one newswire report put it at the weekend, ever-fearful of using the same word twice.



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With the sleeveless suit staple rested Gareth was casual in a black and blue sports top, drawing a hush as an urgent first question was posed from the floor about the rubber chicken England’s players had been pictured chucking around in training. “It was jut a bit of fun,” Gareth explained, as three hundred pairs of fingers whirred at his every prompt.



Nobody expected any of this. Perhaps that’s why it feels so glorious. England weren’t supposed to win a penalty shootout or get to the last four of a World Cup. We weren’t supposed to adore the players, presented for so long as a coterie of gloweringly entitled star athletes. Southgate wasn’t even supposed to be England manager, stepping up from the youth teams when Sam Allardyce was sacked after a newspaper sting that revealed little of interest beyond the fact the England manager had sat in a restaurant drinking a pint of wine.



Southgate was given a humiliating four-match trial period. His first public words in the job were an apology. And in his early days he still resembled a slightly doomed supply teacher who listens and makes the class like him but still gets home to find his pockets have been filled with custard.



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He has has a different kind of light around him now, all assured alpha energy and quiet charisma. Gareth made a mild joke about not remembering 1966. In the front row people tittered and flushed and held their hand to their throat.



Finally Southgate said the stuff he says so well, about how there has been some division at home but hopefully football can bring people together. And about how energised the players are by the sheer level of enthusiasm, joy – and let’s face it, slight mania – back home.



The reaction in England can be a startling spectacle from the other end of the telescope. In Moscow there is little hysteria and few England fans at time of writing. You can walk for an hour now and not see any real sign of a World Cup taking place. This is a city that seethes with life, but which has a reserve about these things.



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England are probably favourites to make it to the final from here. Croatia have better players in many areas. Luka Modric is the classiest player left in the tournament, but he’s 32 now and has slogged through extra time in the two preceding rounds. England are fresh, energetic and a team in harmony with itself.



There is a giddiness to all this, the feeling of uncharted territory in so many ways, not least a fear of when this is all over and it is necessary once again to return to the so-called real world. For now England in Moscow promises more of the same, more shared joy and agony, more beer in the air, the uplifting spectacle of a team and a manager for once punching up, achieving above the sum of its parts, and close now to a moment of genuinely rare sporting history.

