Spain may have (just) emerged victorious come the final whistle, but it was Iran who provided the true highlight of the Group B tie between the two sides, and maybe of the entire World Cup to date.
With time sapping away and Iran advancing up the left flank, Milad Mohammadi lined up the old Steve Howey special: a front-flip throw-in into the Spain box, complete with a little kiss for the ball.
However, a split second before launch, the left-back was suddenly hit by the realisation that this probably wasn’t the right time for such outlandishness and aborted the manoeuvre altogether, leading to a wonderful sheepish backtrack…
Man, if you can’t enjoy that on repeat for a good solid few hours, then apologies but you’re not a proper football fan.
As for the match, a single ricochet off Diego Costa’s inadvertent knee was enough to snare his side the win, though it was about as unconvincing as it gets.
Iran employed a staggering amount of spoiler tactics for the entire duration of the evening and even had a goal disallowed by VAR, but just fell short against a Spain team that once again looked a long way off being potential tournament winners.