England now, officially, expects. Gaeth Southgate made no true attempt to beat Belgium and top their group, meaning they find themselves in the easier side of the draw. (That this side begins with a game against Colombia, who are quite good, rather than against Japan, who are quite bad, seems to be lost on many).
While some of Her Majesty's Press are showing the first signs of turning on Southgate, recognising the folly of choosing to play the more difficult opponent in a knockout tie, there is still much euphoria and good feeling.
And nowhere is it more dominant than in the soupy mind of Paul 'Merse' Merson. Merse has written a column for the Sky Sports website in which he writes off Colombia as "poor", and says that failure now is anything other than a semi-final.
Seeing realism as a nail worthy of smithereening with his great big hammer of hype, Merse says that "everything has worked out perfectly".
"I watched Colombia the other day and there's nothing to be scared of there for England. They are dangerous at set plays but we are as good as anybody at set plays. I was sat there watching the Belgium game saying please don't score!
If we don't get to the last four I'd be shocked. At the start of the tournament, we were saying that if we'd get past the quarter-finals it'd be great but if we don't get to a semi-final now it won't have been a very good tournament.
I've always said we've had a chance but at the moment I can't see past Brazil.
However, from here if we don't reach the semi-finals you have to class it as disappointing. The route we've got now is Colombia, who have been poor and had James Rodriguez limp out of the Senegal game.
Then it's Sweden or Switzerland. No disrespect to the two countries but if you can't beat them you are not winning World Cups.
It's on the Sky Sports website, if you would like to print, laminate and courier it directly to a wall in the Colombia dressing room.
