Most players crave certainty at this delicate stage of a World Cup cycle: they may have survived the cruelty of the final cut and secured their places among the chosen ones, but they still want to know where they stand in the pecking order – whether they will be in the starting line-up for the games that matter, shining the pine as one of the substitutes or left mooching around the team hotel with nothing much to do except wait for a single miserable call-up against the pool minnows.
