Landon Donovan said that it changed his life forever. Nacer Chadli felt like he was in a movie when it happened. Fabio Grosso was screaming “Non ci credo!” – “I don’t believe it” – to anyone and everyone who would listen to him.As for Ahn Jung-hwan, he admitted he would swap his whole career for a goal that made him a national hero at home and got him sacked by his employer the following day.We are talking about football’s equivalent of the buzzer-beater – the late, late World Cup winner that delivers an adrenaline rush like no other to the goalscorer and his team-mates and a dagger to the heart of the opposition.“I don’t even have a way to explain what I’m feeling right now,” an emotional Gabriel Martinelli said on Monday after he scored in the sixth and final minute of added time for Brazil against Japan.Twenty-four hours earlier Canada’s Stephen Eustaquio did the same against South Africa, this time in the 92nd minute. On Wednesday, Youri Tielemans repeated the trick for Belgium against Senegal, registering the latest goal ever scored in a World Cup (the 125th minute, in additional time of extra time). Incredibly, on Thursday, Goncalo Ramos added his name to the list with a 94th-minute winner for Portugal against Croatia.In fact, in eight of the first 12 last-32 matches to take place at the World Cup, the winning goal was scored in or after the 86th minute. Even more extraordinarily, it was the 29th goal scored in the 90th minute or later, according to football statistics company Opta.And, yes, while ‘buzzer-beaters’ are technically shots scored right at the moment the clock runs down to zero, the sheer volume of late, late goals at this World Cup does suggest there is something in the water here – literally, given the hydration breaks are making games longer.But what goes through the minds of the players in the seconds just before those match-defining moments?Some talk about time standing still or, at the very least, feeling as though they are playing the game in slow motion. “You experience everything with a delay,” Chadli explained to the Belgium Football Association, when reflecting on the dramatic goal he scored against Japan at the 2018 World Cup, finishing off a glorious counter-attack in the dying seconds of a thrilling game.Others talk about instinct taking over, almost as if the greatest moment of their career is no different to reaching for the light switch in a darkened room or pulling the door behind you when you go out to work in the morning.