The World Cup Warm-Up: The final is here! It's usually really dull!

Now, despite that excitable headline, the Warm-Up is here, like c.2014-16 Roy Hodgson, to lower expectations. As you will no doubt already know, World Cup finals are typically rubbish. The last one to see more than two goals was in 1998, the last proper, actual exciting contest was probably 1986. Usually the players are so utterly terrified of being the person who makes a mistake and costs their team the World Cup, they can barely move their legs.

And this one, featuring a Croatia team who after three straight extra-times must be shattered, and a France that tend to do just about enough and nothing more, is unlikely to be significantly different. Sorry.

But still: World Cup final! In theory, France should absolutely stroll this one, but this is a World Cup where theories have gone to die. If you’ve spent any time on popular social media platform ‘Twitter’ in the last couple of weeks, you may have come across some fun guys who are very dismissive of the idea that this has been a World Cup of surprises. Hopefully those lads are enjoying the winnings from the tenner they no doubt had on one of the semi-finals being England v Croatia, then.

So hopefully the theme of the tournament will override the trend of finals past. Hopefully we’ll see something entertaining this afternoon. And, well, if not: to hell with it – the English domestic season starts in three weeks!

Oh god…

Without wishing to sound like a bitter Englishman, the game that nobody cares about ended in a relatively simple win for Belgium, goals from Thomas Meunier and Eden Hazard not only completing the 2-0 victory but perhaps giving a brief insight into just how badly England might have been gubbed had they actually got through to face France in the final.

If one was to take a particularly joyless view of things, you might argue that England have got terribly excited over nothing in these past few weeks, that the fact they lost as many games as they won (excluding penalty shoot-outs) takes the edge of things somewhat.

But that doesn’t really matter, does it? In a few years people will remember this as the unfancied team that reached the World Cup semi-finals, not the one that lost to Belgium twice. The English can be a downbeat bunch at the best of times, but let’s not treat this one with the misery stick.

Still, arguably the most interesting development from Saturday’s game was Eden Hazard speaking afterwards about his future. Make what you will of this, Chelsea fans…

Just to return to the final briefly, a very minor yet still interesting subplot is their striker Nikola Kalinic. He was sent home earlier in the tournament for apparently refusing to come on as a substitute, and while that would no doubt have been upsetting at the time, he could at least have consoled himself with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be there for the inevitable devastating moment when his team got knocked out.

Ah. Yes. About that. Who knows where Kalinic will be watching this game from, but the question, should Croatia win, then becomes: will he get a medal?

“Let’s see,” director of communications Tomislav Pacak told ESPN Brasil when asked that question. “The players will decide.”

You can picture it now. Some key members of the squad shuffle to Kalinic’s house and hand over a medal in an awkward ceremony, while he looks sheepish and they slap each other on the back and tell brilliant stories about how amazing it was to beat France in the final. Eeesh, poor guy.

Decent run-out for Everton in pre-season on Saturday. They beat [checks notes] ATV Irdning by the slim margin 22-0 in their latest friendly, which featured this goal. Everything seems fine here. No problems. Carry on.

Perhaps by later this evening we’ll be celebrating Kylian Mbappe as world champion and Golden Ball winner. Before that, read this profile of him by Sam Dean in the Telegraph.

It’s the final. The World Cup final. The final of the World Cup. You know the drill.