So it's England v Italy? Let the conscious uncoupling begin

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/13/england-v-italy-conscious-uncoupling-world-cup

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Finally I know how Gwyneth Paltrow must feel, because there is hugely important news breaking out of my own head at present – easily as historic as that emanating from Iraq. I am engaged in an experimental variation of that episode of The Likely Lads when the boys desperately try to avoid finding out the score of an England game before the TV highlights.

Though not strictly court-ordered, or carried out under specific instructions from one of the more eminently priced psychoanalysts, I am seeing how long I can go with a football tournament before thinking certifiable thoughts about England. By certifiable, of course, I mean any thought that England might acquit themselves with anything more than ignominy at any tournament.

And I'll level with you: I'm in a good place right now. In fact, I'm stunned at how good the place that I am in is. Balls have been kicked in this World Cup and I still don't feel Like That again. By the time this is published, even more balls will have been kicked, and I'll have watched every minute, and while none of those balls will yet have been kicked by England – which is traditionally when the realisation sets in that you're unwell but too weak to stop – this feels different.

As indicated, at times my psychological progress has felt like the football equivalent of Gwyneth's radioactively self-congratulatory newsletter goop, though I lack a couple of fauxmeopathic "doctors" to explain that I have dissolved my dysfunctional relationship with a changing cast of 11 men in the most civilised of fashions.

The locations of our most toxic fallouts – Charleroi, Shizuoka, Lisbon, Gelsenkirchen, Bloemfontein – are tattooed on areas of my brain that I can still access. But I'm sure I could get someone to cover them up with the psychiatric equivalent of even bigger tattoos, perhaps in the shape of lotus flowers or a mosaic of beatific smiles. I wouldn't say that England were quite at the stage of being just another team in the tournament to me – we've been together a long time, and it could never be that. But am I consciously uncoupling?

Perhaps it helps that this is the first World Cup since 2002 for which I haven't been "on the ground", in the parlance of our industry. For the right money, a shrink might explain to me that the baby 11 days off being born is in fact less of an imminent human, and more of an insanely elaborate displacement activity. I can't deny that when I discovered my due date, I calculated that the frantic last-minute preparations would take me up to the point at which England's participation was a dead rubber, with maternity leave kicking in just in time to settle back for the England-free end of the tournament – the England-free middle of it, come to that – with all The Unpleasantness behind me.

I won't deny that it's an hour-to-hour process. I know destructive behaviour patterns are always only a couple of bad decisions away, but for much of this past week I've felt calm, strong and ready to take "not thinking Raheem Sterling is the answer to everything" one day at a time. Each hour I haven't surrendered to the narcotising embrace of the phrase "impact substitute" allows me to look in the mirror and say: "I will not go back to that place because I remember how bad it makes me feel."

It all requires constant vigilance, and it helps to know one's triggers. I knew it would be hugely unwise to discover too much about the useless pitch in Manaus, for instance, where England will face Italy tomorrow night. But like many whose physical geography is largely a collection of glib, lazy and largely wrong assumptions, I can't help noticing that said pitch would seem to be the only thing in the Amazon rainforest that isn't lush and verdant. When I say "I can't help noticing", I mean that a mere two paragraphs into the details of green crystals being ground into this calamity of a surface and I'm starting to make those old, toxic connections.

A dodgy brown pitch is a boon to England, isn't it? We can't pass anyway, so it couldn't matter less to us, but if the Italians can't pass on it, and if they cleave to their traditions of slow tournament starts with a draw, and we … but no. Oh my God, no. I can feel a stirring, even though I know that way madness lies. It starts with allowing yourself to read the phrase "green crystals", and quickly mushrooms to you becoming an expert on tropical fungus. Suddenly, you're speculating about a draw with Uruguay and beating Costa Rica 2-0, and plotting routes to the quarters. But you know, you have to think that we could beat whatever winner or runner-up Group C shakes down out of Colombia, Greece, Japan or Ivory Coast, don't you? Don't you?

Must … stay … strong. I'm sorry. We'll wind up here, so I can avail myself of a Post-it note – a thousand Post-it notes, perhaps, to be stuck anywhere I might look over the next few days – on which I will write a friend's most treasured footballing crutch: ENGLAND HAVE NEVER BEATEN A MAJOR FOOTBALL POWER IN A WORLD CUP KNOCKOUT MATCH ON FOREIGN SOIL.