The long promised quarter-final collision between two neigbouring powers is upon us. There's no question but that it feels like the biggest 'event' of the World Cup thus far.
In both the size of the occasion and the familiarity of the participants, it has the air of another of those English World Cup epics, akin to West Germany '90 or Argentina '98.
One of those games that vacuous celebrity talking heads will be reminiscing about - either mournfully or triumphantly - on trashy BBC Three listicle programmes over 20 years from now. (Dappy from N'Dubz tells the programme that no one in the pub could believe it when Kyle Walker blazed his spot kick over, but Charlotte from Naked Attraction says she'd a feeling he'd miss).
These two know each other all too well, and us them. Needless to say, the rugby crowd, in their annual meetings, lean a little harder on the war rhetoric than the football masses. Eddie Jones - much missed already in these parts - announced with relish in February 2017 that "there's been 20 wars between England and France. There's going to be another on Saturday."
The football teams encounter each other far less frequently and competitive meetings are relatively thin on the ground.
England have a positive head-to-head record against France, as they do against most nations. This is primarily a legacy of the pre-Second World War period when England won nearly every match they played but refused to enter FIFA's new-fangled World Cup racket, partly on the grounds that participation might result in their status as the greatest football nation on earth being called into question - fears which proved well founded.
England have won the two World Cup matches between the pair, dispatching their old enemies 2-0 in Wembley in the golden year of '66 and then - in their first World Cup finals game in 12 years - beating them 3-1 in Bilbao in Spain '82. Outside of that, there were a couple of dreary draws in Euro '92 and Euro 2012.
By far their most memorable modern encounter was their Euro 2004 group opener, when Wayne Rooney terrorised France for 70 minutes before Sven, in typical fashion, decided to give the opposition less to worry about and whipped off the teenager for the closing stages. With England 1-0 up, David Beckham, whose celebrity had by now outstripped his ability, missed a second half penalty to put the game beyond France's reach.
Early in injury-time, Zinedine Zidane swept a majestic free-kick into the far corner to level the game and in the next passage, Steven Gerrard left David James short with a dopey back-pass. Henry nipped in, drew the penalty and Zidane did the rest, inflicting a sickening defeat on England.
Surprisingly, Saturday evening will be the first meeting of the two neighbours in knockout football.
It was observed of England prior to the tournament that the usual up-and-at-'em, it's coming home rhetoric wasn't at the same pitch as in previous years.
This was presumably down to the Premier League monster still hogging the limelight up until almost the eve of the tournament, alongside the extreme discomfort with the hosts and their poor human rights record. Not to mention England's underwhelming form in 2022 - a detail which is caveated by the fact that they don't appear to be bothered about the Nations League.
But the England hype train - which may well be little different from any other hype train aside from the fact that we're afforded a panoramic view of it careering past - is up and running now. The BBC posing the question as to whether Bukayo Saka was better than Kylian Mbappe was the first warning sign that they might be getting ahead of themselves.
But then it would be perverse if they weren't excited. This has to be considered one of the finest England teams in decades, since the late 60s at any rate.
The boy Bellingham is the marvel of the moment. If England go all the way, Jude will surely make a comeback as the baby name of choice in the UK in 2023. There will be Judes sprouting up all over the place in the Premier League in 20 years. It will be the Mason of the 2040s.
"At this point in the Jude Bellingham story, we're at 'Michael Owen 1998', we're at 'Wayne Rooney 2004'. That kind of hype level," John Brewin said on the RTÉ Soccer podcast during the week. (John, interestingly, did not include 'Gazza 1990' in the same bracket, arguing that much of the recalled 'mania' was retrospective, following his semi-final display and the subsequent tears).
The pundit class are falling over themselves to pay tribute to his passing ability, his physical power, his game sense, his maturity. They can't get enough of the latter.
The fact that he's developing his game out in Germany in the Bundesliga, away from the Premier League glare, can only be contributing to his apparent level-headedness.
Southgate, since he was appointed in a fit of apathy after Big Sam's secretly filmed indiscretions, has been diligently nurturing this crop of England players to this point. After all their hot-shot hires of the past - Capello, Eriksen - a failed Middlesbrough manager has become the most successful England boss since Alf Ramsey. He's been faulted for excessive conservatism on occasion but hasn't been found wanting for emotional intelligence. The pitfalls of previous eras, particularly the cliquish, ego-ridden noughties bunch, have been side-stepped.
But in footballing terms, this is the biggest test they've encountered, proof enough that Southgate has enjoyed a fair dollop of good fortune over his six years in charge. They were afforded an unusually tame route to the semi-final in Russia - which, you might recall, they were fully cognisant of at the time - and also benefitted from the soft side of the draw in the Euros, a quasi-home tournament, in which they had to overcome a Germany team in its current mediocre iteration and a buoyant but hardly world-beating Denmark outfit.
Even the Croatia and Italy teams which ended the dream in 2018 and 2021 respectively were hardly on the level of Mbappe and co.
Given their high-profile absentees, and their enduring flair for self-indulgent blow-ups, people weren't sure what kind of shape France would show up in this time.
As it turned out, they've been electric. No other country could so easily shrug off the loss of a Ballon d'Or winner but there is a school of thought that France might be benefitting from Karim Benzema's absence. As Phillippe Auclair - a proponent of the theory - notes, the whole Benzema debate is a fairly fraught and toxic one within France. The sizable far-right element in the country, long ambivalent towards Les Blues on the whole, has a particular animus towards the player and Benzema himself has fanned those flames by expressing regrets he didn't choose to represent Algeria.
The Real Madrid superstar missed the 2018 World Cup win due to the whole sex-tape blackmail business, and has been particularly withering in his commentary on his erstwhile attacking partner Olivier Giroud.
"You can't confuse an F1 car and a go-kart and I'm being kind," said Benzema rather unkindly. "I know I'm a Formula 1 car," he added.
If it wasn't already obvious, Mbappe has announced himself as a generational talent, the greatest player in the world.
Poland's granny-ruler Matty Cash explained the difficulties of handling Mbappe to an especially rapt English press corps during the week. In particular, he painted a picture of that terrifying moment when Mbappe stops in possession, the defender being forced to stop with him, and then revs the engine, accelerating with frightening speed from a standing start.
"When he gets the ball, stops and moves, he's the quickest thing I've ever seen," said Cash.
But it's hardly just him. Deschamps, in an inspired move, has re-deployed Griezmann as a deeper-lying midfield player. The Atletico Madrid striker has adapted beautifully.
The humble go-kart, Giroud, long regarded as an unspectacular centre-forward with a capital U, has passed out Henry's goalscoring record and continues to gel wonderfully with Mbappe.
Appraising both line-ups, and their performances thus far, France have justly earned the tag of slight favourites. But the difference is marginal.
There is a stubbornly cavalier streak in the French which saw them exit Euro 2020 before their time and it should give England more than a chance.
As for observers here, Ireland briefly experimented with a kind of knockabout Francophobia, more native to the UK, in the wake of the Henry business 13 years ago. But it hasn't endured.
There are the mature folk, many of them with newspaper columns, who are happy to cheer for England but then there are others - one would wager to suggest the majority - who feel a kind of sickly dread at the thought of them winning it all.
On the Guardian football podcast, where they harbour enough post-imperial guilt to gently tolerate Irish people revelling in their misfortune, Barry Glendenning, in the aftermath of Italy's penalty shootout win 18 months ago, said he felt a boulder had been lifted off his chest.
If England do get by France tonight, that cohort will have to brace for the worst. World Cup glory will feel closer than it's been in 56 years.
Jude may be the sainted hero of their 2022 World Cup journey but England are far from a lost cause.
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