The Fiver | Wrestling with the abstract concept of hope, which nearly always wins

In today’s Fiver: England, Scotland, Norn Iron 1-0 and Southport going global

A win for England against Slovenia on Thursday night will guarant … actually, you know what, we really cannot be bothered any more. Let’s shelve the celebratory pretence, we all know how it’s going to pan out. They’ll qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia one way or another, almost certainly stifling a yawn, Harry Kane will spend the next seven months breaking the combined career goalscoring records of Lionel Messi, Gerd Müller and Pelé before one of his metatarsals turns to powder, the team will subsequently fail to progress from a group containing Switzerland, Iran and Basingstoke Town, and Mr Roy will seize the opportunity to retrospectively argue that the Iceland result wasn’t so bad when you look at it now, I didn’t have time to implement the methods that have translated from Halmstads to Malmo to Orebro to Neuchatel Xamax, you don’t get the opportunity to sail up the Seine every day, and while we’re on the subject the reason Palace didn’t do a goal all season was the fault of Frank de Boer, Attilio Lombardo, Malcolm Allison and that winger Pards signed from Wolves.

Related: Pampered Lions? Welcome to England’s no-frills World Cup base for Russia 2018

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