Supp. Ten 'Saviours'

Before the tournament the notion that Nigeria could go some way in saving Argentina's potential place in the knockout rounds would have been far fetched as an understatement. But, as Ahmed Musa, the African nations record goalscorer struck twice beyond the Icelandic goal, Argentine fans began to breathe slightly easier. The 2-0 win puts Nigeria in second place behind front runners Croatia with Iceland and Argentina both on a point each on the bottom, but the victory gives the South American’s some cause of optimism Musa’s goals were brilliant, full of invention and delivered the edge we had been expecting from the Nigerians at the tournament. Iceland delivered another sound performance but rarely challenged the Nigerian goal. It will undoubtedly be an exhilarating end to affairs in Group D when Argentina meet Nigeria in the final round of Group fixtures.

Group E hosted the other round of fixtures for the day as Brazil met Costa Rica and Serbia met Switzerland. Brazil were looking to improve on their first day struggles against the Swiss, and manager Tite named a near identical 11, with fullback Fagner coming in for Danilo. Brazil huffed and puffed but rarely looked as if they were living up to anything near the ceiling of the talented group. Neymar caused controversy throughout with his ease and willingness to go down theatrically. After doing so throughout the opening exchanges, the referee finally awarded a penalty for Brazil, only to reverse it upon reviewing on VAR. Costa Rica would go on to hold the Brazilians off for 90 minutes until Philippe Coutinho struck in the last minute - Neymar’s 90’+6 would compound their misery as the outfit came away from the encounter with nothing despite a valiant performance. The Swiss beat Serbia in Kaliningrad, carving a 1 goal deficit with goals from Xherdan Shaqiri and Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka. Group E is very much wide open going in to the last round.