World Cupdate: The Assassination of Carlos Queiroz by the Coward Enrique Cáceres

Oh, my, was the #narrative shaping up to be ever so delicious. After the (seemingly only, for US coverage) story of the first 11 days of the tournament was Ronaldo clearly dominating Messi, despite the two being in different groups -- look how brave Ronaldo calmly dispatches his penalty and free kick while Messi has never seen a football before, the scrub -- there was the potential for some true high comedy in the final group games. For all his superior awesomeness Ronaldo's Portugal could still go out with a loss to Iran, while the very abject Argentina side still hold a lifeline in Group D, meaning there was still hope that after all the talk, Portugal and Ronaldo would crash out only to see a Messi hat trick save Argentina's bacon the next day.

Things only got more enticing when, with a chance to seal the day and put Portugal up 2-0 late from the spot, Ronaldo took a terrible penalty and got saved. He should then have been sent off, but referee Enrique Cáceres saw fit only to award a yellow card for an elbow off the ball. There is no way for that to be a yellow card offense. Either he didn't elbow an opponent off the ball, and there is no foul, or he did and he should be sent off. It's as simple as that. Cáceres saw that Ronaldo had committed the infraction, he just lacked the fortitude to enforce the rules.

All extremely clever blog post titles aside, the match was not killed off there. Iran were awarded a penalty in stoppage time, after Cáceres took what seemed to be five minutes before even walking over to the monitor, and Karim Ansarifard became the new GOAT by burying it to set up a frantic final few minutes. And then, needing just another goal to eliminate Portugal and earn a heroic birth in the knockout round for Iran, the ball fell to the foot of Mehdi Taremi inside the box.

He blasted it into the side netting.

Portugal saw off the remaining time. There was less of it than there should have been, with only one additional minute added to the original six added on despite a minutes long pause for VAR and a lengthy substitution by Portugal, but at this point that's bullet point 600 or so in the refereeing error notes of the match. The penalty did prove costly for Portugal still as, combined with Morocco conceding a heartbreaking late equalizer to Spain, they dropped to second in the group despite appearing to have a comfortable grip on top with just minutes to play. This will see them facing off with Uruguay instead of Russia, and a possible rematch of the Euro 2016 final against France in the quarterfinals. Uruguay earned that top billing in Group A by dusting the Russians 3-0, finally bringing the hosts down to earth after a pair of dominations over the group's two also-rans.

Today is shaped up to be a more intriguing day, with seven of the eight teams in action live and kicking, and no dead rubber matches. I'll be pulling for the Aussies in Group C, and am on team whatever as long as it's entertaining in Group D.