“CO-LOM-BIA! CO-LOM-BIA!”Miami Gardens or Barranquilla? Honestly, it was hard to tell. There was a yellow wall at Hard Rock Stadium, built brick by brick with Carlos Valderrama, Andres Escobar and James Rodriguez jerseys.The flight time from Bogota to Miami is more or less the same as that to get here from New York. A short hop. A little under four hours. The proximity to home, not to mention the Colombian diaspora in Florida, helped make the ticket for the Group K decider against Portugal the most wanted of the group stage.Cristiano Ronaldo was another factor; the main attraction for the Portuguese and his millions of followers. Except when Ronaldo ran out for the warm-ups and his face appeared on the big screen, boos reverberated around the ground.It was as if Colombia were playing at home.“CO-LOM-BIA! CO-LOM-BIA!”Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic appThis only added to the challenge for Portugal.Roberto Martinez based the team in nearby Palm Beach in order to prepare his players for this game. He wanted them to acclimate to the heat and humidity of playing in Florida. Colombia played the Copa America final two years ago at the same venue. It was a measure of their pedigree, as runners-up in that competition, and experience in preparedness for this environment.Unlike the weather up the East Coast where England played Panama in the cold New Jersey rain earlier in the day, it was a hot one in Miami. This was never going to be an easy game, even for a team as good on paper as Portugal.Colombia fans made Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium feel like home (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)“CO-LOM-BIA! CO-LOM-BIA!”Just how much Portugal struggled still came as a surprise though. Colombia were not necessarily at full strength. Nestor Lorenzo made three changes. He left out Luis Suarez, who scored 34 goals in all competitions for Sporting. He benched Daniel Munoz after the full-back scored in back-to-back games against DR Congo and Uzbekistan. He didn’t risk Johan Mojica who was only a booking away from suspension. It just so happened Jhon Lucumi and Jefferson Lerma found themselves in the exact same situation. They played anyway, knowing it was a tight-rope act at the Hard Rock. One false step and they’d disappear from the line-up for the Ghana game in the Round of 32. This should, theoretically, have aided Portugal. It did not.“CO-LOM-BIA! CO-LOM-BIA!”Martinez can call upon one of the best midfields in the tournament. When he rested Joao Neves from the start against Colombia, he played his namesake, Ruben, next to Vitinha instead. Vitinha finished the game with a 100% pass completion rate. “Even so,” Martinez acknowledged. “We weren’t able to control the game or to use our individual talent.” Portugal’s best player, the Man of the Match, was goalkeeper Diogo Costa. Colombia attempted 24 shots, their most ever at a World Cup, surpassing the 23 they had against the USA in 1994, the fateful game in which Andres Escobar scored an own-goal. If it wasn’t for Costa and the linesman James Lindsay, who, arguably, made the best call by any match official at this tournament, by spotting Davinson Sanchez’s stoppage time goal was, in fact, offside by a big toe, Portugal would have lost.