05:01

It’s almost as if Fifa’s world rankings mean nothing. Russia, the desperate host nation whom Fifa deem to be the world’s 70th best side, are now pretty much nailed on to go on and emulate Uruguay, Italy, England, (West) Germany, Argentina and France by winning their home World Cup. Having knocked off Egypt to improve their record this tournament to a record of played two, won two, scored about 57, they have become the first team to at least plant one foot in the last 16 – most likely both – and against all expectation. It’s great news for subscribers of the theory that for a World Cup to be successful, you need the host nation to progress. The repercussions, with football-mad nation Qatar hosting in four years’ time, could be wide-reaching. Or not.

Anyway, despite Mo Salah’s appearance and goal, Egypt now appear dead and buried, but at least Senegal raised African spirits with a rousing win over Poland on day five, while Japan kept up Asia’s end with a surprise victory over 10-man Colombia. Plenty from all three games to dissect over the next few hours.

That’s all before the second round of matches continues with three more contests, including the return of Cristiano Ronaldo’s thighs, Luis Suarez’s Uruguay and 2010 world champions Spain. This blog is scheduled to run up until the first kick-off of the day, at which point we’ll have individual efforts like this:

1pm BST/3pm MSK/10pm AEST: Portugal v Morocco

4pm BST/6pm MSK/1am Thursday AEST: Uruguay v Saudi Arabia

7pm BST/9pm MSK/4am Thursday AEST: Iran v Spain

Throughout the course of the day/evening/whatever it is where you are, feel free to get in touch on email (mike.hytner@theguardian.com) or Twitter (@mike_hytner) or below the line. Meanwhile, you could do worse than sign up for the World Cup Fiver: