The greatest World Cup footballing extravaganza is up and running, providing some stunning results already for the fans to cherish. For the neutrals, this has to be the most entertaining first round in a very long time.
Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, Germany – Many touted them as the favorites to lift the trophy, but not one of these teams managed to amass three points in their opening encounter.
Maybe this is the season for the underdogs to have their say. Belgium crushed Panama 3-0 whilst some other highly rated sides like Croatia and Senegal are off to a decent start.
From Mexico’s highly spirited performance against the defending champions to Iceland’s heroic World Cup debut, a lot of amazing things have happened already, which just makes the tournament a lot more intriguing.
5 Aleksandar Kolarov (Serbia) vs Costa Rica
Talk about spotting the top right corner with surgical precision, you won’t see many better examples than this amazing free-kick converted by Serbian skipper Aleksandar Kolarov. The former Manchester City and current AS Roma defender, Kolarov has a particular proclivity to pull off some stunning goals. If one has to rank all of those amazing strikes, this has to be right up there in the top 3.
Costa Rica entered the game as the favorites to win it going by how well they performed in the previous edition. They were far away from pulling off something similar and fluffed some presentable chances as well.
Nacho (Spain) vs Portugal
Spain and Portugal provided one of the finest encounters in the history of World Cup when both sides settled for a 3-3 stalemate at the Fisht Stadium.
Cristiano Ronaldo snatched away two important points from the Spanish, but the latter had their moments in the match. Ronaldo opened the scoring very early in the game, putting the ball past David de Gea via a penalty.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) vs Spain
Cristiano Ronaldo had already scored two in the game, but Diego Costa’s brace and Nacho’s thunderous goal kept Spain in the lead. The going got tough for Portugal as Spain neutralized every attacking move they performed.
Time was running out, Portuguese hopes were dying. The Spaniards in and out of the stadium were in a celebratory mood as they pretty much had three points in the bag.