MARTIN PETERS perhaps summed it up best when asked why England should get the 2018 World Cup.

“We gave the game to the world,” moaned one of the goalscorers in the only major final this nation has been in. “Some countries have had it two or three times, but we’ve only had it once.”

Peters is probably right that England’s turn as a host is long overdue. But the attitude that because the game originated here, the rest of the world should show its eternal gratitude and simply roll over whenever we want something has festered for far too long.

Let’s hope that 2010 is the year when it’s finally extinguished.

For too long England has laboured under the delusion that because it has the oldest grounds, the newest grounds, the best league, the most passionate fans – all theories open to debate – it should be leading the world game on the pitch too.

Wanting to win and believing you can win are fine. Feeling you have a right to win is when the rot sets in.

In football you have to earn what you get and self-satisfied arrogance gets you nowhere.

As was proven in the excruciating build-up to the last World Cup – we can only hope the lessons from 2006 have been learned.

For years pundits, press men and fans salivated at the thought of that year, when Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Beckham and Owen would supposedly be ‘at their peak’.

Add in the bonus of the acceleration of Wayne Rooney to world class superstar and it was in the bag.

All those players, with varying degrees of form, fitness and ill discipline, actually made it to Germany, where the greatest show on earth turned into a non-event for England.

For golden generation read wasted youth.

But nothing went disastrously, head-scratchingly wrong. If the England football team was a golfer, going out on penalties to Portugal in the quarter-final would be going round in par.

But the collective exasperation in some parts is what happens when you try to set the bar too high before you’ve even got off the ground.

Sometimes you have to accept that other countries will have better players and – shock horror – some of the best in the world don’t even play in the Premier League.

That’s still the case now so there’s no reason to think we should do any better this time.

Gerrard and Lampard are now the wrong side of 30, Beckham and Owen long gone, Terry and Ferdinand unstable, emotionally and physically respectively.

And there’s still no world class keeper. Pepe Reina isn’t even Spain’s first choice but you’d have him with his back to the kicker in a shoot-out before you’d back any of England’s three to perform penalty heroics.

Even Rooney isn’t guaranteed to be a success. Yes, he had a great season for Manchester United but so did Cristiano Ronaldo two years ago.

But come Euro 2008 he failed to build on the momentum of his 42-goal club campaign and he was a peripheral figure in Portugal’s underwhelming showing.

But as long as Fabio Capello is aware that everything in the English garden isn’t as rosy as many here believe it to be, there may be some hope after all.

The immediate euphoria of England’s convincing qualification has long since subsided. All Capello really did was turn a team that couldn’t beat Croatia into one that could.

Okay, 9-2 on aggregate over the two qualifying games was a stunning turnaround and he deserves credit for that.

But it’s what he is paid to do. He made the best of the considerable quality he had at his disposal.

Now the real stuff starts and the recent showings in the warm-up games hardly inspire confidence that the stroll of the qualifying campaign will be repeated.

So it’s time to be realistic and accept that anything England do achieve in South Africa will be down to luck rather than ability.

At least the message seems to be getting through to the not exactly hype-shy chocolate advertisers.

Four years ago, Mars replaced the brand logo on their bar with the word ‘Believe’. Nobody did.

Thankfully, Kit Kat’s marketing men seem to have hit the right note with their slogan this time around – Cross your fingers.

Good advice. Advice we would all – including Capello – do well to heed.