On July 15 2018 - the day of the World Cup final - the recently-turned 19-year-old Chalobah, who had just spent the season playing for Chelsea Under-23s, tweeted a picture of the trophy with the caption: 'One day #Believe'.

Eight years later, having been included in England's 55-man provisional squad for the 2026 tournament, Chalobah was hoping that dream would become a reality.

However, the 26-year-old was not initially named in Tuchel's World Cup squad, despite his old Blues boss acknowledging 'you're close'. So, instead, he packed his bags for a holiday in New York and Los Angeles.

Fast-forward to Monday 15 June and Chalobah's holiday plans were in ruins. But his dream had come true.

'I was literally in Times Square,' Chalobah explained when asked about being called up in place of the injured Tino Livramento.

'I went to the shops to get something. It was when I got back to my hotel that I saw Thomas had texted, but it was two hours before. I didn’t see the message for two hours. I wasn’t on my phone; I was just walking around the city. Got back to the hotel, looked at my phone and he had asked if I could call him. My heart just dropped.

“We spoke on FaceTime and he broke the news to me. I was just over the moon.'

He added: 'I just called my family, called my agent. It was one of those times, it was early morning [in the UK], so I texted my agent and said, ‘Wake up, wake up’. He thought I was in trouble!'

It wasn't long before Chalobah was back on a plane, this time an internal one to Kansas City, to link up with the rest of the England squad on Thursday, following their 4-2 victory over Croatia the day before.

Trev had made it. He was at a World Cup. Just as he predicted eight years earlier.

He said: 'It is [the] number one [moment of my career], especially because I didn’t expect it. I think that is the beautiful thing about it, when you didn’t expect it and to get a call like that shows that obviously when you think all is lost or it’s not going to happen, that tweet I had came true.'