THE BEST MATCHDAY 1 EVER?

BEST MATCH

The Spain versus Portugal six-goal thriller last Friday has to be the most scintillating World Cup clash so far. It’s not only the quality of the goals – a hat trick from Cristiano Ronaldo to salvage a point for Portugal and two from Diego Costa and Nacho for Spain – that gives the fixture this honour, but the rivalry between the two sides along with the camaraderie that has to be put on the back burner between Ronaldo and his Real Madrid teammates. It ended 3-3 and was by far Matchday One’s best match.

BIGGGEST SHOCK

The unthinkable happened on the eve of the World Cup – Spain, among the favourites to win the tournament, fired coach Julen Lopetegui for accepting a job as Real Madrid manager when the dust has settled in Russia. The Spanish FA were highly upset that the communication of this new development was sent to them “five minutes before a press release” went out globally about the man who will succeed Zinedine Zidane. Legend Fernando Hierro has stepped in.

BEST CELEBRATION

Sadly this has been the disappointment of round one, and you can blame VAR and goal-line technology. We’ve been robbed of a Paul Pogba dab as well as Antoine Griezmann’s hot-line bling celebration because of this new way of deciding whether a team has scored a goal or not. We would appreciate very few of these in the next round of matches, pretty please.

STAR PLAYER

It’s definitely Ronaldo for his hattrick against Spain. CR7, as he is popularly known, singlehandedly earned Portugal a point in that six-goal thriller - first scoring the penalty to spark the game into life, and then breaking Spanish hearts by intelligently picking the top corner and score from a set piece as the clock ran down to earn his national team a valuable point.

BEST GOAL

It’s not an easy choice – there have been a couple of stunning ones in Russia. But Dries Mertens’ lace technique volley to score Belgium’s opening goal in their 3-0 thumping of debutants Panama was very easy on the eye. Ronaldo also receives a mention for his injury time free kick in the 3-3 against Spain last Friday, and so does rightback Nacho for his strike that hit the inside of the post and went in to beat goalkeeper Rui Patricio.

THE QUOTE OF THE FIRST MATCHDAY

Seeing people calling Iceland boring and defensive as if that’s something we’re choosing to do. Our GK is a film director, our RB has a day job making salt and got time off work to play at the World Cup. If you can’t be happy for us, go jump in the f***ing ocean. – SEEN ON TWITTER AS POSTED BY AN ANGRY ICELANDIC FAN