Shortly after he arrived in France, England striker Jamie Vardy was photographed going to practice carrying a can of Red Bull and a tin of chewing tobacco.
Asked about the possible side effects of his breakfast of non-champions, Vardy said: "It's just something I've always done and they've been checked with the medical team and there's nothing wrong with them."
Is England's medical team sponsored by Marlboro? Because that would seem to be the only way that could be possible.
Vardy also volunteered that he does not work out with weights. Ever.
"If I go in the gym, it will slow me down," he said.
No two athletes are the same, so one doesn't want to judge. Vardy certainly passes the utility test. However he manages it, few forwards in the world have his burst of speed. It's the crux of his game.
One is reminded a little of that swashbuckling legend, Socrates – the wine-guzzling, chain-smoking, never-practising Dr. Frankenstein who flipped the switches inside the great Brazilian soccer laboratory of the 1980s.
The key difference between the two is that one showed up in the big games, and the other has yet to.
Starting Vardy on Monday evening was supposed to be the master stroke that pulled all of England's considerable talent together. In a move that smacked of daring for daring's sake, manager Roy Hodgson made six changes in the lineup that had beaten Wales.
England didn't need more than a draw against Slovakia to advance, which is of course what they got. It was one of those 0-0 games that exist on three aesthetic levels.
On the first: The point is to score goals. Nothing can be that great without goals.
On the second: But some goalless games are better than others. This one had moments of excitement.
On the third: By "excitement," we mean that one team surrendered and other kept swinging its sword three inches over the other's head.
England should have won – a sentence that ought to be the translated into Latin and inscribed on the team crest. Instead, the English allowed Slovakia to wrestle them into a heedless game plan of going up the middle. They hammered ineffectively at the Slovaks from that position like a battering ram made of bread sticks.
As the first half dragged on, former England regular Rio Ferdinand tweeted, "Only a matter of time before we score."
Do these guys have their memories erased as they're leaving the national program? Is that part of the farewell package – trauma counselling, a mind-wipe and a good cry?
Why else say such a thing about this team having been on this team? It must be for satiric effect.
In the second half, England continued going through the centre while all the galumphing Slovak defenders stood there being happily nailed repeatedly with cannonading shots in the heads, legs, chests and far more sensitive parts.
When that didn't work, England began spraying balls at the goalmouth like a malfunctioning sprinkler. In terms of distance covered, the evening's top performer was the ballboy standing behind the Slovak net.
It was fun to watch in the sense watching someone kick a soccer ball against a wall for two hours might be fun if the guy doing the kicking is famous.
(It might also be noted that after a bright start that included a well-saved breakaway, Vardy disappeared for most of the game. Maybe the medical team forgot to administer his halftime dose of whippits.)
Because of the goofy way this tournament is organized, it is more difficult to be eliminated from the first round than to advance. Only eight of 24 teams are out at the first hurdle. With all the resultant jostling, who you get in the knockout round is a bit of a potluck.
At this point, England didn't have that much to gain by finishing first in its group. The problem wasn't tactical. It was optical.
Who won their group? Wales, behind a 3-0 shellacking of Russia.
The Wales that England just beat. The Wales that hasn't been in a major tournament since the 1958 World Cup – the one at which a 17-year-old Pele debuted. The Wales that has one-20th of the English population, and even less of a soccer tradition than that.
Good for them, but still … Wales.
It is a frustrating, objective reminder that England is the big engine that couldn't. At some point many years ago, that became the biggest challenge for this outfit, regardless of who wears the shirt. Whatever they say about it in public, they don't believe they can win. Since they never do, why would they?
That effect is twofold. Everyone England plays – even the teams that are massively outclassed on a player-by-player basis – think this is their moment.
You could see it in the faces of the Slovak players on Monday. If they were in the midst of a similar swamping by Spain or Germany, their spirit and organization would have flagged, if only for a crucial moment.
But no panic or doubt infected them. A draw suited them just as well as the English, and they have less to prove. Slovakia rope-a-doped the better team, never intending to punch back. Why risk it?
At the end, the Slovaks celebrated. England slouched off the field knowing how this effort will play back home – "Here we go again."
The rest of the world pushes this corrosive narrative forward by continuing to react to any English flop like it's a genuine upset. It's not. It's England. This is what they do.
They've tried every which way to fix it. Vardy, a 29-year-old who didn't make his national team debut until a year ago, is just the latest presumptive saviour being showered in metaphoric lighter fluid. Everyone's already lining up to spark the match. He'll know that. So will the rest of them.
In the end, England's greatest problem is not beating other teams. It's overcoming its own history.
Cathal Kelly