The French sports daily L'Equipe ran a short and amusing interview with Glenn Hoddle yesterday.

"It is possible for us to win this World Cup," said Glenn.

"Really?" said L'Equipe. They might just have easily added, `oh come, come, Glenn'.

L'Equipe finished the brief interrogation by asking Hoddle if he even imagines for a second that England would not get out of Group G. Of course he doesn't.

Still, despite Hoddle's robust faith, the business of proceeding to the next round may not be the trifling formality which the English public have been led to expect by the legions of media soothsayers who predict a semi-final appearance for the English (and then anything can happen.)

The team they bring to Marseille today (1.30, Network 2, BBC 1) is ordinary and in the throes of tactical uncertainty. Hoddle, suddenly a born again 35-2 man, is setting up quite a few hostages to fortune with his approach.

The faith healers and the spoon-benders are PR time bombs. Sending Gascoigne home was the correct thing to do in as much as bringing the distracting buffoon was the wrong thing to do in the first place. Granting absolution to the recidivist Sheringham was a practical necessity. Providing no cover for the fragile Graeme Le Saux was sheer folly.

This afternoon it looks as if Hoddle will resist the pressing claims of Michael Owen and go with Shearer's known preference for being partnered by Sheringham. The price of that accommodation may be the knowledge that there won't be a better chance in this World Cup to acclimatise the young striker whose pace and steadiness are less dispensable than Sheringham's waning skills.

In midfield there is debate as to whether or not Batty will be included, the thinking being that, against Tunisia, England can afford to be a little creative and can put off the inevitable first yellow card of the tournament for Batty until another day.

On the other hand Beckham's creativity looks like being left on the bench as Scholes tucks in behind the front pair, Anderton and Le Saux work the corridors out wide, and the over-rated Ince does the stoking in midfield, perhaps accompanied for today by Nicky Butt.

A defence of Southgate (or Gary Neville), Adams and Campbell looks big on muscle, but doesn't brim with creativity or pace.

It should be enough to get England past a Tunisian team whom manager Henri Kasperczak says are "just hoping to put up a good show".

Kasperczak, part of the Polish team which kept England out of the World Cup in 1974, and then came third in the competition is now a French citizen and is the longest serving manager on the African continent, having been appointed in 1994 after Tunisia's Nations' Cup disaster of that year.

He has brought a rigorous discipline to his job but his assessment of their chances may be accurate. The five strikers he has brought to France have scored a total of 23 goals in an aggregate of 105 matches and the best of them, Riadh Jelassi and Adel Sellimi, have struggled for form over the last 12 months, although the latter gave grounds for hope in his last outing against Chile.

Tunisia scored six goals in their last two friendlies, but, says Kasperczak, "the majority of those goals have come from our defenders. I don't have a Ronaldo".

That could mean we see the slightly rotund Ben Slimane play on familiar territory today. Formerly with Marseille, but never a star there, Slimane plays with German second division side Freiburg these days where his mazy dribbling has made him a local cult figure. If injury spares young Ben Younes he could well get the start alongside Slimane.

Beyond that the team is short on stars and has a frustrating tendency to over-elaborate. Baya Zoubele, a team-mate of Slimane's at Freiburg, is the mainstay of a work-a-day midfield but the good news for Kasperczak is the form of his latest acquisition, Jose Clayton, down the left flank. The revelation of this year's domestic championships in Tunisia, Hatem Trabels, plays on the right side, having scored in his debut against Chile two weeks ago.

None of it should be enough today. And if it is there'll be hell to pay in Marseille.