Full Time
Colombia and Portugal played out a goalless draw in Miami, which was enough to send Colombia top of Group K. The match had its moments — Davinson Sanchez thought he'd nicked it with a late header but VAR ruled it out for the most marginal of offsides. Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, was largely anonymous as Portugal rode their luck in the second half. Colombia go through as group winners, Portugal as runners-up, and both will fancy their chances in the last 32 — Colombia vs Ghana and Portugal vs Croatia.
Pre-match Talking Points
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1Colombia go into this one top of Group K with six points — win or draw and they finish first. Portugal are second on four points and need a win to leapfrog them. Both sides are already through to the knockouts, so nobody's going home tonight, but the group winner gets a theoretically kinder path in the round of 32. If you're Colombia, a draw is fine. If you're Portugal, it isn't.
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2These two have never met at a World Cup before — in fact, this is their first-ever World Cup encounter full stop. What we do know is that Colombia are unbeaten in their last three World Cup games against European sides, while Portugal have the same record against South American ones. Something has to give. Both stat lines can't survive tonight.
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3Daniel Muñoz is the man to watch for Colombia — not a household name, but he's scored in both games so far, including the winner against DR Congo, and he's doing it from right-back. A defender who turns up in the box at crunch moments and actually finishes is rarer than it sounds. Meanwhile, Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo struggled in the opener but then scored twice against Uzbekistan to become the first player ever to score in six different World Cup tournaments. That's the kind of fact that's annoying to admit if you're not a fan, but still.
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4James Rodríguez is 34 and this is almost certainly his last World Cup. Against DR Congo he created five chances — the most by any Colombian in a World Cup game since Carlos Valderrama in 1998. That's either a lovely subplot about an ageing playmaker going out on his terms, or a lot of pressure on one man's knees. Either way, if Colombia are going to be clever about how they play tonight, it runs through him.
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5Four of Portugal's squad won the UEFA Champions League with PSG just weeks ago, beating Arsenal in the final. They've arrived at this tournament in form, full of confidence, and slightly annoying about it. Colombia, meanwhile, are a team nobody really expected to top the group. They've done it quietly, without much fuss, and with a right-back who apparently just scores now. That tension between expectation and reality is what makes this one worth watching.
Team Talking Points
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1Colombia's World Cup ended in the cruellest way possible: a 0-0 stalemate with Switzerland in the Round of 16, settled on penalties, where the Swiss held their nerve 4-3. Twenty minutes of extra time and nobody could score — that's either agonising or oddly fitting, depending on how you feel about penalty shootouts as a concept.
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2The high point was a near-perfect run before that: beating Uzbekistan 3-1, then holding Portugal to a scoreless draw to finish top of a tough group, followed by a 1-0 win over Ghana in the Round of 32. That's four games unbeaten, including a result against a team with Cristiano Ronaldo on it, before penalties finally got them.
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3Right-back Daniel Muñoz quietly became one of the stories of the group stage, scoring in wins over both Uzbekistan and DR Congo — not bad for a position where you're mostly supposed to just not concede.
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4Luis Díaz, now at Bayern Munich after leaving Liverpool, was Colombia's main attacking threat throughout. James Rodríguez, 34 and now Colombia's all-time World Cup appearance leader, ran things from midfield as captain — still doing the job he's done since 2014.
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5After the Switzerland exit, Colombian football royalty like Falcao were publicly unimpressed with how it ended. Worth remembering if it comes up: topping a group with Portugal in it and reaching the Round of 16 is a solid tournament by recent Colombian standards — the criticism is more about expectations than the actual results.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Colombia topped a group with Portugal in it, then went out to Switzerland on penalties without either side scoring a goal in 120 minutes — genuinely one of the more Colombian ways this could have ended.
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Avoid saying
"They always bottle it in the knockouts" — they beat Ghana 1-0 in the Round of 32 and only lost on penalties after 120 goalless minutes with Switzerland. That's not bottling it, that's just penalties being penalties.
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1Portugal's World Cup ended in the round of 16, beaten 1-0 by Spain on July 6 — Mikel Merino, on as a substitute, scored deep into stoppage time to send the eventual finalists through instead. As cruel a way to go out as there is.
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2That match very likely doubled as Cristiano Ronaldo's last-ever World Cup appearance, at 41. He'd equalised from the penalty spot in the previous round against Croatia, so it's not a bad way to bow out — a goal near the very end of a 20-year international career, even if the final result didn't go his way.
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3The high point was that round of 32 win over Croatia, 2-1, settled by a Gonçalo Ramos header in the 94th minute after Ronaldo's leveller — and a controversial VAR call that chalked off what would have been a late Croatia equaliser. Proper knockout football drama.
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4Portugal went unbeaten through the group stage (a draw with DR Congo, a 5-0 win over Uzbekistan, a goalless draw with Colombia) to finish runners-up in their group, before the round of 16 brought the run to a stop against the tournament's form team.
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5For one of the traditional big footballing nations, a round of 16 exit is the kind of result that gets filed under 'quietly disappointing' rather than catastrophic — but with Ronaldo's international career very possibly now over, this tournament will be remembered for who was playing more than how far they got.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Cristiano Ronaldo, at 41, may well have played his last-ever World Cup game against Spain — scored a penalty the round before to bow out on a goal, which is more than most players get.
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Avoid saying
Don't say 'Portugal always bottle it' — they went unbeaten through the group and lost to the eventual finalists by a stoppage-time sucker punch. That's not bottling it, that's just a rough final ten minutes.