Three lions on the shirt, three goals scored in the World Cup. And that’s it. Rubbish. Rampant hysteria before the World Cup began would have seen England tuck away ten in the group stages alone, and it’s that sort of delusional national thinking that several retailers played on when it came to pre-tournament offers.

For example, we told you how O2 offered customers an England-branded PAYG SIM before the World Cup began, that paid a fiver for every goal scored by England or, if you were a realist about such matters, every goal scored against them. The only condition was that you topped the SIM up with £15 to be eligible. If you went with England, you’ll have your credit plus another £15 in cash, and if you bet against England, you’ll have the credit plus £25.

As far as bets went, it was a no-brainer because the worst case scenario was always that you’d have £15 worth of credit to spend. But ramping up expectations of the national team probably led to plenty of people taking a far bigger gamble with Currys, who offered customers £10 per England goal – if they purchased a television costing over £599. At the time, we reviewed the stats and predicted the likelihood of six goals – we can only apologise for heightening expectations ourselves – we predicted England would score a single goal against Algeria.

Somewhere, there’s some poor bastard staring at a boot-shaped hole in his flatscreen, put there yesterday afternoon when he realised the can’t-lose offer Currys sold him on – that the euphoria of the occasion convinced him to take – was nothing of the sort.