Could this be the year when England’s men win their first international football trophy for 58 years? After all, they have the best striker in Europe in Harry Kane and the best attacking midfielder in Jude Bellingham, both of whom are being treated like Wellington and Nelson at their respective clubs BayernMunich and Real Madrid. This should be about time too that pundits admit that the way Bellingham lit up the European Championships in Germany makes him, at the very least, Bobby Charlton’s equal. If he is not Sports Personality of the Year in 2024, something very odd must have happened in the space-time continuum.

If Bellingham is not Sports Personality of the Year in 2024, something very odd must have happened

England also have the best right winger in Europe in Bukayo Saka; a superb holding midfielder in Declan Rice; and the fastest full back on the planet in Kyle Walker. So can anything stop England? Well yes, and his name is Harry Maguire.

The Championships will be superbly organised, as the man in charge is Philipp Lahm, one of the smartest, most creative players ever to grace a football field. But might the game come to its senses and stop awarding career-ending penalties because, after six minutes studying the videotape, the VAR decides that the ball has brushed someone’s fingernail? Goals should be hard to score and we should be able to celebrate them.

In tennis, 2024 could be the year when we finally learn whether Emma Raducanu has buckled under the weight of expectation she piled on herself by winning the US Open as a teenager – and wringing out of it as much publicity and moolah as she could – and will be forever remembered as a one-hit wonder. Or could she start winning again?

And can anyone stop Novak Djokovic? Rivals come and then mostly go again. Nole won three out of four Grand Slams this year, and next year he has got the Olympics as well, so he seems unlikely to be dialling anything down. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz pop up occasionally to give him a scare, as do Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev. Even so, their only real hope will be that the hardened Serb boycotts all tournaments because of a ‘lack of respect’.

At the risk of tempting fate, will the 2024 Paris Olympics be a triumph of French chic? Or will the staging of the Games in a city with a rich history of street unrest become a focus for those who want to spoil our fun? The signs aren’t good, but then Parisians like to bellyache about everything. Fares will be doubling, there are unfathomably complex security arrangements at the venues, and most of the city’s citizens now disapprove of the whole shebang. My guess, though, is that it will almost certainly be a triumph, just like London 2012 – remember that?

As for cricket, will Jimmy Anderson finally retire? Or, when England announce their Test squad for Afghanistan in 2038, will we find out he’s being ‘rested’? This could also be the year when either Ben Stokes admits defeat in his battle against injury or English cricket gives thanks to a knee surgeon for resurrecting the Test career of a man whose style of inspirational leadership was so lacking in the 2023 World Cup.

As English rugby labours in a morass of largely self-inflicted problems, the big question is whether captain Owen Farrell’s sabbatical will make much difference. In 2024’s Six Nations, England should beat Italy and Wales, have a tight match with Scotland, and get stuffed by France and Ireland. And yet… Ireland might be going over the hill, and France will lack Antoine Dupont. The important thing for England will be to make sure Marcus Smith and Henry Arundell are on the pitch as much as possible. At 5-1, they feel quite a tasty bet.

Meanwhile, could Formula 1 get any more dislikeable? Its insistence that it is first and foremost a ‘lifestyle brand’ will doubtless lead to an announcement that it is hosting a Grand Prix which doesn’t involve any actual motor racing. Max Verstappen is declared the winner. No one notices.

For lovers of American football, there’s only one big question, and that’s whether the Kelce brothers will face off again in the Super Bowl, as they did in February when Travis and his Kansas City Chiefs pipped brother Jason and the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35. Will it happen again? Well, it certainly could. I am sure readers of this journal don’t need to be told that Travis Kelce is dating Taylor Swift – and the Chiefs’ performance shoots up when she’s at the game, as do Kelce’s running stats. Maybe this is something Manchester United could bear in mind whenever one of their star players gets a new girlfriend?