Miss Carney handed us out blank paper and marla, old plasticine with the colours all rolled together into brown.

Italy's progress throughout Euro 2020 has been gathering momentum from their opening win against Turkey and after overcoming Belgium and Spain in the knockout stage they will fear no-one and rightly so.

It would be merely feckless to frame American choices about China on the Micawberesque hope that something will turn up, or that China will turn down.

Difficult? Hah! I can do it standing on my head!