It has been 52 years since Bobby Moore held the Jules Rimet trophy aloft and Nobby Stiles danced around Wembley with a toothless grin on his face. Today, in Moscow, one of England's greatest strikers, Gary Lineker will be present whilst the draw is made for the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia.
England have had their share of heartache in previous tournaments and have not even reached a semi-final since Gazza's famous tears at Italia 90. We will be hoping for a favourable draw later today.
How the draw works
The 32 teams are divided into four groups of eight.
Each group of eight contains teams ranked in the top 8, next top 8 and so on. The groups will have four teams and will be listed A to H and will contain a team from Pot 1,2,3 and 4. Each team will play each other and the top two will progress to the next round.
Where is England?
England is in Pot 2 along with Spain, Peru, Switzerland, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and Croatia. In Pot 1 are the top eight teams of Russia ( as hosts), Germany, Brazil, France, Poland, Portugal, Argentina and Belgium.
What England will be hoping for in their group is to avoid the big guns like Brazil and Germany and to get a favourable draw from Pot 1 like Russia, who are actually the lowest ranked team in the entire tournament but qualify as the host nation.
They can then hope to pick up lower ranking teams from pots 3 and 4.
Worst case scenario for England would be to pick up Brazil from Pot 1, then a solid European team from Pot 3 like Sweden and an in-form team from Pot 4 like Nigeria who beat Argentina comfortably during the last international break.
Should we get the face paints out?
While the World Cup, and other international football tournaments, do lead to a degree of patriotism and fervour, we really shouldn't start to get over-excited. Our record in previous tournaments is pretty poor, culminating in our embarrassing exit from Euro 16 at the hands of international minnows Iceland.
In fact, 11 of England's 62 games at World Cup finals have ended goalless, giving us the unwanted title of the record holders for most goalless draws ever. Oh dear. Realistically, England should at least look to exit the group stages and with a decent draw for the knockout maybe even progress to the next stage, further than that, on recent form, it's not very likely.
Who are favourites?
Joachim Low's Germany is bookies favourites to win back-to-back tournaments since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Then the usual suspects of Argentina, Spain, France, Belgium and then England.
Catch the draw live on TV and see who England will be facing next year.
