Iran

• 1
  Iran's World Cup ended in the group stage without losing a single game — three draws, against New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt, added up to three points and elimination anyway, decided by the tie-break maths of other groups' third-place teams. It's a strange way to go out: unbeaten, and still on the plane home before the knockouts.
• 2
  The high point was arguably the Belgium game — a 0-0 draw in which Iran's captain, Mehdi Taremi, was fouled clean through on goal, getting a Belgian defender sent off and forcing his side to see out the last 25 minutes a man down. Holding a major European side to nothing with ten men on the pitch is a result Iran can be proud of.
• 3
  The moment that actually cost them came in their last game, against Egypt. Shoja Khalilzadeh thought he'd scored a stoppage-time winner that would have sent Iran through automatically — the goal was chalked off for offside after a VAR review, by the finest of margins. That single call is the difference between a group-stage exit and a first-ever World Cup knockout appearance.
• 4
  Taremi was the man to watch throughout — a penalty saved against Egypt, a header off the crossbar, and generally the player causing the most problems in every one of Iran's three games, even in the ones that finished goalless.
• 5
  Iran go home unbeaten and could reasonably feel hard done by — three draws and one offside call away from history. Next time, the margins might just fall the other way.