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“But I’ve been waiting for this for so long!” moaned one of my mates, reaching for the razor blades. “It’s a disaster,” said Steven Gerrard. Meanwhile, the rest of the English nation flooded the Samaritans with desperate phone calls.

Who knew the end the end of another series of The Apprentice would cause such consternation?

But of course, I jest. The real cause for the national rending of garments was the news that England’s talismanic forward Wayne Rooney will definitely miss some, and most likely all, of the World Cup. Received wisdom holds that we now have “no chance”, we might as well “not bother turning up” and even Ladbrokes, normally the Ebenezer Scrooges of the bookmaking world, got in on the act, briefly pushing England out to 10-1 shots, before a few clued-up punters made them revise their ideas.

The stark reality is that England’s chances of winning the World Cup will barely be decreased at all by the absence of our pug-ugly genius.

Brilliant as he is, people seem to have over-estimated Rooney’s likely impact on the event.

Apparently, before his metatarsal misery, Rooney was all set to bang in ten goals in the Finals, completing this record haul with a Roy of the Rovers style hat-trick in the final. Not bad, for a man who only scored 16 goals in THE ENTIRE PREMIERSHIP SEASON, when, far from facing the stingiest defences in the world, he got to feast on the likes of Sunderland and West Brom, while playing up front for one of the most potent attacking sides in the country.

No, Rooney was all set for a great World Cup, but the idea he was going to take over and dominate like Maradona (Diego know’s what’s what, by the way) in ’86, is flawed, not least because he’s always liable to lose his rag and get sent off when some cynical continental type kicks him while the ref’s not looking.

The fact is, unromantic as it sounds, teams win World Cups, and other big tournaments, with watertight defences, not scintillating forward play.

Remember the last big tournament England played in? Won by the Greeks? The Greek midfielders and forwards had as much talent between them as resides in Rooney’s left big toe, but because no one ever scored against them, they could have played Coco the Clown up front and still got at least a penalty shoot-out.

Ah ha, you say, what about those brilliant Brazilians of 2002? Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo – what a team! Yes, those boys played well, but the fact the side conceded a total of precisely one goal (scored by the man everyone seems to forget will be leading our line this summer) from the second round onwards, surely helped their cause a tad?

The previous World Cup was won by France. Who could have played up front for those thrilling purveyors of rapier-like attacking football (who also conceded just one goal from the second round onwards)? A young Henry or Trezeguet? An old Papin? Wrong! It was that terror of defences worldwide … Stephane Guivarc’h! And they had super-sub Christophe Dugarry waiting in the wings!

It doesn’t matter a hoot who plays up front; how well England defend will be the key. Notice how, in Sven’s squad, all the ‘gambles’ are attacking players? The clever old coot has realised that with Terry, Ferdinand, Robinson et al at the back, no team will score twice in a game against England, and most won’t score at all, so he can let Faria Alam lead the line if he wants as long as he finds the odd goal from somewhere.

When England last won the World Cup - I think it may have been in 1966 - all the goals were expected to come from Jimmy Greaves, but he ended up playing little part while Geoff Hurst grabbed all the glory.

Peter Crouch, your destiny has arrived.