Today marked the begining of the end for the group stage. Groups A and B played their final games, which is always a cause for drama because most of these games will decide who advances to the Round of 16. There was an enormous amount of people claiming that the refs and the use of VAR was very one-sided in almost every match, which goes to show how big these games were today.
Oops, VAR did it again. There's no denying VAR got it right, but wow. Portugal had all but wrapped up first place in Group B, but two VAR decisions in stoppage time from both the Portugal vs Iran match and the Spain vs Morocco match put Spain on top.
In Portugal vs Iran, referee Enrique Caceres initially allowed play to continue after what seemed like an unintentional handball in the box by Portugal right back Cedric Soares. After being prompted to consult VAR, Caceres reversed his decision and pointed to the spot.
Group B went batshit crazy on Monday, but when the dust settled and the VAR screen had been flicked off, nothing had changed over the course of 90 overly dramatic minutes in Russia: Spain finish top and will play Russia, Portugal finish runners-up and take on Uruguay. One major talking point is that the European champions could’ve been preparing for that game without Cristiano Ronaldo, who was given a VAR-inspired yellow card for an off-the-ball elbow.
Believe it or not, Cristiano Ronaldo is flesh and bone, just like the rest of us.
Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty against Iran and is momentarily trailing behind Harry Kane in the race to win the Golden Boot.
You have to give all the credit to Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand for denying the shot from Ronaldo, one of the world’s most efficient penalty takers.
Mexico take on Sweden Wednesday, June 27 at Ekaterinburg Arena on the final matchday of Group F action at the 2018 World Cup. The match begins at 10:00 a.m. ET on FOX and Telemundo with Sweden needing a big win to advance following that remarkable 2-1 defeat to Germany. For El Tri, a victory or draw secures top spot in the group.
Portugal struggled to break down the stout defense of Team Melli for about 45 minutes. Then came the absurd Ricardo Quaresma goal vs Iran to flip the tie on its head.
In February, we crowned Quaresma the King of the Trivela. The Besiktas winger brought his beautiful technique with him to Russia and scored what may be the most sumptuous goal of the World Cup thus far.
Who wants to play Russia? Who wants to play Uruguay?!
Not Morocco. The already-eliminated side has been one of the better looking teams at the World Cup, but the Atlas Lions had yet to score or get points at this World Cup heading into its final group match. That’s soccer for you.
But after all the misfortune, Morocco finally had some luck go its way.
A rare fib between former El Clasico rivals Andres Iniesta and Sergio Ramos led to a break away for Khalid Boutaïb. David de Gea was looking to make his first save of the tournament, but Boutaïb finished with poise.
We came up with a list of teams likely to win the World Cup based off of their performance in the first match, but with round two now officially in the books, we take a look at which sides kept up their momentum and who slipped off the radar.
RUSSIA
The last round of matches have begun, so now we can take a look at who were the best players of the second matchday at the World Cup. If you ask us, this World Cup is moving way too fast. We wish it could last forever, but we live in a cruel, cruel world.
We could easily have named Croatia's entire starting eleven for this week, but that would be too easy.