Nine o'clock, Wednesday, all of us at once

It starts tomorrow. England open their World Cup against Croatia on Wednesday at 9pm, our time, in Arlington, Texas, live on ITV. Thomas Tuchel's side arrive as one of the favourites — eight wins from eight in qualifying, twenty-two goals scored and none conceded — with Harry Kane as captain and Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice around him. Tuchel was blunt about the weight of it: a country that hasn't won the thing since 1966 can't call itself a favourite out loud.

What lands here is not the tactics but the timing. Because the tournament is in North America, the kick-offs are late — 9pm for the opener, later for some — and that changes what an England match is. It is no longer the afternoon-in-a-beer-garden tournament of 2018 or 2021. It is a thing you do on the sofa, after the children are down, with the curtains still open on a light June evening. For ninety minutes on Wednesday, a large share of the country will be looking at the same screen at the same moment.

That is rarer than it sounds. The whole drift of how we watch — streaming, on demand, everyone in the house on a different device — has been away from the shared minute. The World Cup is one of the last things that drags it back: appointment television, live, unpaused, where the point is partly that millions of strangers are flinching at the same time. Whatever we end up doing with our evenings as work asks less of our days, this — gathering around one event because it is happening now — is one of the oldest answers, and it still works.

The match is a real test, not a gentle opener. Croatia are ranked eleventh and beat England in the 2018 semi-final, the last time it mattered this much; they are older now but they still keep the ball and make you chase it. Ghana follow on 23 June and Panama on 27 June, both more forgiving on paper. But tournaments are remembered by their first night, and the first night is the hard one.

What I'll be watching, beyond the result, is the shape Tuchel picks. He left out Phil Foden and Cole Palmer, two of the most gifted players in the country, and built instead around runners and workers. It is a choice about what wins in July, not what entertains in June. If it comes off, the early scratchiness is forgotten. If it doesn't, the questions start at eleven o'clock on Wednesday and don't stop.

For now, though, the pleasure is in the eve of it. The squad is in Texas, the kit is out of the wrapper, and tomorrow the country gives itself permission to care about the same thing at the same time. That permission is the best part of a tournament, and it is free. Nine o'clock. ITV. Bring something to eat.