We won't win the World Cup. I can change that!

Whelp, time for another World Cup. Now this wouldn't be so bad, if that was all it entailed. But no, I am British, or strictly speaking English, so I have endure weeks of 'this year could be our year!' and 'come on England!'

It's not going to be our year.

Because our football team sucks.

This may come as a surprise to you

The last few World Cups they looked like people who got a free holiday but all they have to do is a one-hour meeting about the benefits of buying a timeshare. Every minute on the pitch they sulked about, eager to get the fuck off and back to the bar. So far, the only difference this year is that they avoided looking like this for 45 minutes before they lost interest in the sport.

I mean, fuck it, we're not going to win. Patriotism doesn't trump reality. So why not have fun with it? David Beckham wanted to play one last time - why not? It wouldn't hurt our chance. Hell, let's get nostalgic and ask if Linker or Gazza is free. Super dedicated fans have travelled to Brazil to watch their team play: why not let them participate instead? Hold a lottery, or hell, just point to random people in the crowd and tell them to jump in. Don't want to play? Well, why don't you manage instead? Knock yourselves out. There's Make a Wish Foundation too, if they want to get in on that. It's not like it'll hurt our chances!

Perhaps we could roll with this, and use the fact we are just not sucky enough to fail to qualify every yeah, and use it as a bribe. We exchange our place in the World Cup to the Scottish football team, and we'll publicly announce that this means, yes, they are better than us at football... just that they gotta stick it out with us in the union. Why not? Scotland, for one, they would actually want to be there, and once again, it's not like substituting Scotland would hurt our chances.

I'm saying our chances are 0%, right? You got that?

As much chance as this ending well

In fairness, while I'm bashing on our team for sucking more than an atomic power vacuum cleaner, it's not entirely their fault. Every year the media hypes up our chances and our players until they talk of Wayne Rooney being some form of football messiah who's descended from heaven to lead us to glory... when he's clearly not. And we play a team of people who barely know each other, as we grab random players from a menagerie of rival teams and tell them to ignore all the training and teamwork they've done with their individual teams and play with these practical strangers... and what do you know, they play like shit. Funny, that.

Now some of you are reading about my bitching and wondering if I don't like it, then I can shut the fuck up and go home. Fine. But it bothers me that me embarrass ourselves like this every year. So, thinking to myself, I devised a plan. It's a glorious plan, literally. My plan will not only win ourselves a World Cup, but I guarantee a second World Cup - yes! Defending champions, something only shared with Italy and Brazil. And just maybe - maybe - an unprecedented third cup in a row. Three in a row baby! Though I do admit that'll be hard to pull off.

So here's my plan. From the get go, it's long term. I will need twelve years. So, we're going to suck for another twelve years. But look on the bright side: without my plan, we'd suck for twelve years, then continue sucking after that. With my plan, suck for twelve years, then GLORY.

So I'm going to need about a hundred children.

And their parents! Jesus. Calm the fuck down. You see, where we suck now is that we don't have players trained early enough, and trained early enough together. We need team-mates, not acquaintances. So, I need a hundred children, about six years old or round about, who love football, and want to play. See? Not so sinister. Then I will train them.

The first few months the children will be monitored closely. I'm looking for passion and talent, and more of the former than the latter - I'd rather have trained skill then people relying on just talent. Then after the first few months, I'd let the injured and the not caring go.

Then the real training begins.

Yeah, that phrase is never preceding something good

It's going to be fucking brutal. It's going to be harsh. These children will learn nothing that is not related to football. Sure they're learn some maths - engineering and trigonometry because you better learn the angles son, because if you don't I will kill your parents.

Fine, we've moved back into sinister territory, but we haven't won a cup in over sixty years and desperate times call for desperate measures. Those children will be playing for more than the love of the game - they'll be playing for their parents lives. Eh, major psychological trauma on a few dozen children versus multiple World Cup victories? The public will be on my side.

They will become the greatest football players known to man, though I must admit I recently watched Soldier with Kurt Russell and I may be basing my entire plan on that film's plot, but whatevs, it's not like Hollywood lies to us.

Originally I planned on whittling down the player to a final team by some form of football themed gladiatorial death matches, but I eliminated that as being needlessly wasteful. For starters, if I had thirty equally skilled players, then it's a hella waste when spares will do fine. Secondly, I don't want to encourage individuality, I want teams of players. I want them to band together, united by hatred of me and and desire to save their loved ones. United they'll be an even better team.

Thirdly, it'd just look ridiculous.

And they will march on the pitch, at eighteen years old, and fucking annihilate the opposition. They will march to victory without pause or mercy. And they'll return at twenty two years old. And twenty six. Depending on the attrition rate, or whether of not they get other their unholy fear of me and beat me to death in some back alley somewhere. Besides, maybe I don't have to kill all the failed player's and their parents - maybe the first set of six, and the rest can just disappear.

Sure, it'll be an awful, protracted crime, but two to three World Cups! Maybe four!