World Cup Warm-Up: Cristinao Ronaldo gets the hump as VAR takes centre stage

For all the chaos, nothing much actually changed. Spain and Portugal are into the last 16 of this World Cup, trading first and second spots throughout a VAR-tastic night in Kaliningrad and Saransk, but Cristiano Ronaldo’s dreams came within a side-netting of being crushed by Iran, who kept fighting (in every sense) right to the end.

It takes something to overshadow Cristiano Ronaldo missing a penalty and then almost being sent off, but that something is VAR, the system responsible for clogging your Twitter timelines with every possible 4/10 opinion imaginable.

Of the four sets of players frantically making rectangle shapes at the referee last night, perhaps only Spain are waking up today without a sense of burning injustice. Iran’s coach Carlos Queiroz could have stayed there all night talking about how VAR has ruined his life, Morocco’s Nordin Amrabat rather comically made a “VAR” gesture at the camera after the final whistle and called the system “bulls**t”, and Portugal just breathed a huge sigh of relief.

One thing was abundantly clear by the end of the night, though. VAR - even if deployed as tidily as possible - is going to be front and centre for the rest of this tournament. Portugal will now play Uruguay in the second round, a match that sounds like it might as well take place in a 90-minute VAR split-screen. Can’t wait.

Mo Salah couldn’t bring himself to celebrate his goal - Egypt’s first in open play at a World Cup since 1934 - because his tournament was effectively over already. A story that began with a traumatic shoulder injury ended with defeat to Saudi Arabia, a side who had been taken apart on the opening day, but who now had their first World Cup win since 1994.

Trivia fans rejoiced, meanwhile, as 45-year-old goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary - a man six weeks older than Peter Andre, apparently - not only started the game to become the oldest-ever World Cup player but also saved a penalty. But, with three defeats out of three, the Pharoahs are heading home.

In Samara, even before Luis Suarez had led Uruguay to a 3-0 win over a ten-man Russia, there might have been a sense that the hosts were about to be found out a little. The euphoria from the trashing of Saudi Arabia on day one had propelled them past Egypt, but the likes of Diego Godin are rather less accommodating. Igor Smolnikov was sent off before half-time to make their day even more tortuous - last 16 place or not - while the second half became the Will Edinson Cavani Score At This World Cup? show. The answer was yes, eventually.

If Iceland’s World Cup adventure ends today, it will also bring to a halt one of the more unconventional fan journeys of the tournament.

Kristbjorn Kjartansson and Greta Jonsson won a competition back home, the prize for which was an old Soviet 4x4, a Lada Niva. It has carried them 3,300 miles from Iceland to Russia, following their team around, until they reached Rostov for the final group game.

The prospect of the petrol bill doesn’t appear to worry them….yet. “We haven't put it all together,” said Jonsson. “Now we'll just pay and worry about how much we spent when we get back home.”

Just as Russia were given a dose of pure reality after gleefully thumping a World Cup minnow, the English newspapers were still basking in the glory of beating Panama 6-1. On the precarious see-saw that is “England’s World Cup Expectations”, fears were already growing that we had all got a bit too excited too early.

Still, it’s not as if we still have one group game left against a star-studded World Cup dark horse who could put a pin in our balloon, is it? Oh.

If ever there was an advert for finding your niche, and ploughing it until it finally pays off, it’s Ricardo Quaresma. The 34-year-old, whose career has been punctuated by abortive spells at big clubs where he could have become a legend, is now firmly a cult figure.

But there will always be room, even in the year 2018, for this type of thing. Then, once the excitement of this World Cup is over, we can start talking about some of these camera angles. What is going on?!

On this very day in 1990:

Take that, Belgium.

Here it is in the simplest terms: France and Denmark will be going through, unless Denmark lose and Australia win. Later on, Iceland need to beat already-qualified Croatia and hope Nigeria don’t beat Argentina. Messi and co need to beat Nigeria and hope Iceland don’t beat Croatia.