For Lionel Messi, the crowning glory beckons. As Argentina’s gaze zeroed in on a third World Cup triumph, it was impossible to ignore their iconic leader and the compelling narrative around him.
You drop Cristiano Ronaldo and the man you pick instead of him best not miss. Gonçalo Ramos is 21. He made his international debut last month.
Nothing this precious ever came easy. Two parts ecstasy to one part agony, Argentina qualified for the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
It was a night when England succeeded in doing one thing: dousing the expectations that had built so suddenly after the thrashing of Iran in their opening World Cup tie.
From first to last, the drum beats were relentless from the small section of Senegal supporters. They pounded in the temples of everybody present, creating an oppressive backdrop to this high-stakes occasion.
As Lionel Messi zigzagged this way and that it sometimes seemed that Argentina’s No 10 must be electrically powered and perhaps operated by remote control.
Let’s do this by numbers, shall we? For the first time in four World Cups, Spain won their opening game.
This had been billed as the night a rested Kylian Mbappé would run riot. He ended up doing exactly that but, first of all, France’s old stagers laid the platform.
Marcus Rashford kneeled down, closed his eyes and pointed his fingers to the sky. At one of the finest moments of his career, the England forward wanted to pay his respects to a friend he has just lost to cancer. The emotions raged.
France have lost top players before this World Cup but they still have their razor-sharp centre-forward to score and set up goals,
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