If you’re not a football fan, it’s possible your life online has suddenly become quite alienating. Friends who may once have seemed sensible, sensitive, even artistic, have been inexplicably converted into people who name-drop wingers and centre backs and post about staying up late to watch Côte d’Ivoire play Ecuador.

All I can say is, don’t fight it.

I was once like you. How I mocked grown men – and occasionally women – on TV panel shows, discussing football like it mattered. Talking about sport with the same intensity philosophers might debate existence (or Star Wars fans the latest film).

Having unexpectedly sporty children has changed me. I understand now the appeal and importance of sport is that it doesn’t matter. Sport is something into which we can invest our most intense passion and emotion, in 90-minute instalments, without it having any real effect on our broader lives.

In that light, the World Cup has arrived at just the right time. As the news cycle doom-spirals us all into oblivion, what........

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