Highlights

Three inch-perfect free kicks from Cristiano Ronaldo, Aleksandar Kolarov and Aleksandr Golovin are among the best World Cup goals of the tournament thus far. Each free kick cleared the wall from roughly 25 yards out and left the goalkeepers no chance of making a save.

Kolarov's free kick was all Serbia needed to earn three points from its opening Group E match against Costa Rica. Serbia's captain and 32-year-old left back could not have hit this one any sweeter. 

A massive Mexican contingent of fans at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow (Fox’s Kasey Keller went as far as to say it was 80 percent El Tri fans vs. 20 percent German) was on hand to watch Mexico defeat defending world champions Germany 1-0 thanks to Hirving “Chucky” Lozano’s goal in the 35th minute.

Time after time, Germany has found itself shook by Mexico’s lightening pace on the break. If not for some more assured decisions in the final third, El Tri could’ve certainly opened the scoring before Hirving “Chucky” Lozano beat Manuel Neuer in the 35th minute.

No matter.

Mexico is playing some lovely stuff with Lozano taking the game to the much-heralded Joshua Kimmich, Hector Herrera hasn’t put a foot wrong in midfield and Chicharito looks sharp up top. 

The opening goal was a microcosm of Mexico’s play on the whole. It’s been simply breathtaking at times.

No event escalates individuals to the status of national hero or global villain as dramatically as the World Cup. The idolatry that follows success and the stigma that follows failure are woven into the fabric of history, and the repercussions will typically follow footballers for the rest of their lives. Daily, we’ll take a look at who played the role of hero and who played the role of villain at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Croatia vs Nigeria was the last match of a long day at the World Cup, one that began at 6 a.m. ET (that’s 4 a.m. for yours truly). We could forgive you if you couldn’t stay awake for the match, which wasn’t quite up to par with the first three — especially if you were following our lead making World Cup cocktails and playing drinking games. 

The Denmark vs Peru match finished 1-0 in favor of the Danes, but the scoreline did little to capture the end-to-end nature of the match. Peru looked the more threatening side during the first half, which culminated in a Christian Cueva penalty kick that landed 20 rows deep behind Kasper Schmeichel's goal.

France defeated Australia without entirely convincing, and the same sort of analysis could be applied to its myriad of attacking talent. Ousmane Dembele and Kylian Mbappe are both absolute spectacles in full flight and Antoine Griezmann is the spice that is the variety of life, but the three just couldn’t combine with the sort of intricacy and understanding that fellow frontrunners Spain and Brazil enjoy.

Anyone else hungry for nachos? I mean, I’m always hungry for nachos, but something about that Nacho goal vs Portugal has me even hungrier that usual.

The first half of the Portugal-Spain matchup was absolutely bonkers. But the second half didn’t peter out like the first season of Westworld (I haven’t watched Season 2, so no spoilers).  

No player appeared more devastated by Jose Gimenez’s 89th minute winner for Uruguay than Mohamed Salah on the Egypt bench; no player could’ve been more elated than Luis Suarez. The Barcelona striker had a nightmare match for La Celeste, spurning three glorious chances while also getting globally ridiculed for an atrocious dive/feigned injury combo.