Andy Dawson: DROP EVERYTHING! THE WORLD CUP IS COMING!

With just a few days to go to the kick off of the biggest sporting event on the planet, our man Andy Dawson has been suddenly gripped by World Cup fever...

It was earlier today when it properly hit me. At first I thought I was about to have a panic attack but instead of anxiety came euphoria. My stomach flipped and I felt my entire being begin to tingle.

I tried to work out what was causing this but then I rewound a few seconds and realised that I’d just glanced at my World Cup wall chart as I’d wandered past it, and it had triggered this sense of bliss as my sub-conscious considered what we are about to receive. Is this what being in love feels like? Have I never even truly been in love before?

The World Cup is coming, people – and if you’re not prepared to spread your arms wide and submit to its might over the next five weeks, you don’t belong in decent society. If your friends, family and other loved ones don’t understand that they either commit to this entire thing in union with you or will have to be shunned completely, possibly forever, THEY don’t belong in decent society.

Players of the Peruvian national football team attend a training session at the Arena Khimki stadium, outside Moscow, on June 11, 2018, ahead of the Russia 2018 World Cup. (Photo by YURI CORTEZ / AFP) (Photo credit should read YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

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64 matches in the space of a month. Is that enough? That doesn’t feel like enough. Maybe a thousand would be more like it. Over, let’s say, six weeks instead of four. How come there’s a petition for safe standing at football but not one for a thousand-match World Cup? How do we sort this?

If you haven’t prepared properly for the World Cup, it’s probably too late now. If you haven’t taken the whole month off work, or at least got a month’s worth of half days booked in so you can knock off in time for the 1pm kick offs, you’ve already blown it.

Your best chance now is to just walk out of your job without looking back. Recognise your life priorities and act fast. A scorched earth approach. There’ll probably be thousands of others doing the same thing throughout this week as the tension builds, and it’s definitely A Good Thing.

One… the employment market will get a much-needed shake-up, with hordes of people looking for new jobs. Two… those jobseekers will all be infused with glee after immersing themselves in the greatest football experience on Earth.

Put simply, there’ll be plenty of jobs for you to pick from in mid-July, AND they’ll be better ones, because that is the power of the World Cup. The World Cup is not here to hurt us.

A picture taken on April 25, 2018 in Paris, shows the jersey of the Brasilian, German and French national football team for the FIFA 2018 World Cup football tournament. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP) (Photo credit should read FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images)

As a freelancer, my situation is slightly different. I’ve told all of my clients that I’ll be doing NO WORK for them between now and the end of the tournament. As preparation, I’ve put a pound coin in a glass jar once a week since the end of Brazil 2014 and it now looks as though there should be enough in there to cover all of my expenses. I’m pretty sure the mythical power of World Cup has been adding on interest for me as well, so there’ll be about three and a half grand in there when I smash it open on Thursday.

Of course, there’ll be some people, naysayers, who will ask you why the greatest global event known to all of humankind is just so important. Take these jokers to one side and quietly point out that the clue is in the title… the World Cup. It literally translates into English as ‘The Cup Of The World’. THE ENTIRE WORLD. There can be no other cup anywhere else as big or as, erm, worldish.

Then show them this Saturday’s fixture list – four matches in eleven hours. FOUR!

The World Cup – it’s so important that even Jamie Vardy has vowed to knock the snus and the port on the head for a few weeks.

The World Cup – it’ll be f***ing brilliant even when it’s s***.

The World F***ing Cup!

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