THE DAY REPLAYED – Drama, joy and emotion – three essential ingredients of any FIFA World Cup™ – were in plentiful supply on Thursday. It was a day on which heroes joined forces to lead their teams to glory, while others completed unlikely comebacks and one player in particular was unable to withstand the emotion of it all, leading to a rumour or two on social networking sites.

All in all, it was another excellent day for South America, with Colombia striding into the second round for the first time in 24 years, while Uruguay bounced back to revive their hopes of pulling off another Maracanazo and leave England’s chances of making further progress hanging by a thread. Bringing the day to a close was the third goalless draw of the competition, played out by Greece and Japan.

Results 

Colombia 2-1 Côte d’Ivoire (Budweiser Man of the Match: James Rodriguez, COL) 

Uruguay 2-1 England (Budweiser Man of the Match: Luis Suarez, URU) 

Greece 0-0 Japan (Budweiser Man of the Match: Keisuke Honda, JPN)