04:58

Bonjour, g’day, hola, hæ, hej, bok, hello and perhaps most importantly, здравствуй! Day three of this 2018 World Cup is upon us and who’d have thunk it, but there’s a fair bit to dissect and look forward to, with plenty of late drama from day two to analyse and four more tasty treats on the menu today.

There’s not much left to say about him that hasn’t been said already, but... Cristiano Ronaldo. What. A. Player. Another hat-trick, including a late doors equaliser (“Genius, absolute genius!” roared the commentator), denied Spain a morale-boosting win in the Group B showdown in Sochi. It had been singled out as one of the games of the group stage and a six-goal thriller really didn’t disappoint. More on CR7, David De Gea’s clanger and Diego Costa’s brace later on.

Ronaldo’s 88th-minute free-kick wasn’t the only late goal on day two – there was also late drama in St Petersburg and Ekaterinburg, where Iran and Uruguay snatched victories over Morocco and Egypt respectively. Again, more on those results to come.

Of the games coming up, clearly the one to get excited about in these parts of the southern hemisphere (Sydney office writing) and possibly some parts of west London, is the Socceroos’ opener against Les Bleus of France, one of the tournament favourites. No one’s giving Australia a hope in hell of beating Didier Deschamps’ side, which is fair enough, but stranger things have happened at major tournaments. Not many, admittedly. But how about the US in 1950, North Korea in ‘66, Scotland in ‘78 and Senegal in 2002 (against the French)? It’s possible.

Then there’s the small matter of Lionel Messi’s Argentina opening their campaign, against Everybody’s Favourite Second Team™, Iceland. Oh, and how about dark horses Peru against Denmark, and Croatia playing Nigeria?

I’ll be with you for the next three hours, before Paul MacInnes takes over and guides us through until the first kick-off the day, at which time we’ll have separate liveblogs as follows:



8pm AEST/11am BST/6am EST: France v Australia – Group C

11pm AEST/2pm BST/9am EST: Argentina v Iceland – Group D

2am (Sunday) AEST/5pm BST/12pm EST: Peru v Denmark – Group C

5am (Sunday) AEST/8pm BST/2pm EST: Croatia v Nigeria – Group D

In the meantime, feel free to get in touch on email (mike.hytner@theguardian.com) or Twitter (@mike_hytner) or below the line.