Note: This story first appeared in The Beautiful Game by CNN Sports, our daily newsletter on all things World Cup. To subscribe, click here.
And … breathe.
More than three weeks of multiple World Cup group matches daily has come to an end. For me, this is always a sort of solemn day. While the point of the World Cup is ostensibly to crown a world champion, and the only way to do that is through knockout games that eliminate the rest of the field, the group games are the true joy of the tournament.
The smaller nations celebrating a summer in the sporting sun, the long-planned vacations abroad coming to fruition, the jam-packed daily schedule of games, the Scots arriving on our shores and drinking all our beer before leaving us dazed at what just happened – the group stages provide it all.
Now we come to a particularly jarring day in the World Cup calendar: There is just one game. Only one. And – unsurprisingly for this World Cup – it comes with a bit of controversy. Let’s get into it.
