90+2 min Fernandez-Pardo oozes towards the box, but attempting a cute pass into it, he can’t quite find Luekbakio. Belgium, though, sustain the attack, a poor cross form Castagne giving Mechele little with which to play, his header flying wide.

90+1 min Nemati crosses from the left and Jahabkhsh is in the box … but the ball is fractionally high.

90 min We’ll have five additional minutes.

90 min “As a long suffering Blackburn Rovers fan,” says Christppher Lee, “one of my favourite memories is Andrew proving that ol Diamond Lights sometimes talks rubbish (as if more proof were needed) by scoring a wonderful improvised finish to win us the League Cup over Hoddle’s Spurs.”

Yup, I apologise for not flagging it, somehow distracting myself in the process.

89 min It’s Belgium trying to win it, Fernandez-Pardo making space in centrefield before Lukebakio’s cross sails just beyond the far post, Tielemans unable to catch up with it.

87 min Change for Belgium, Fernandez-Pardo – who I believe is properly talented – replacing De Bruyne.

86 min But here come Belgium, De Bruyne sending the ball wide to Castagne, whose low cross is excellent. Tielemans slides at it but can only divert sideways … to De Cuyper, 15 yards out and in space! He hits hit well enough, but without requisite precision, Beiranvand again doing well to push away.

85 min Another Iran change, and another forward for a defender, Hosseinzadeh replacing Ezatolahi. A win here qualifies Iran for the last 32, so it makes sense to pick the attacking option – but actually, it almost always does, in life as well as football.

83 min “Is it just recency bias or is this World Cup especially goalkeeper-heroics heavy?” wonders Joshua Reynolds.

I think you’re right. the save Beiranvand made off the ground was sensational, and we’ve seen plenty of other fine efforts and performances.

Meantime, De Bruyne prepares to swing over a free-kick from wide on them right, the kind of opportunity that allows Belgium to load the box … then he picks out the keeper, who punches clear.

81 min De Bruyne gives it away in midfield, so Ezatolahi shoves the ball forward then explodes into a long-ranger which Courtois cant hold; he’s lucky no one’s following in, because otherwise that was 1-0.

79 min Belgium are sitting back and perhaps that’ll help them – in the process of going for the win, Iran will leave more space at the back.

78 min Another change as Iran chase the game, Moghanloo, a striker, replacing Ghoddos, a defender.

77 min “I agree it’s time for a shift to offside being determined by position of the feet,” says Craig Scott. In pre-VAR times it might have been unreasonable to ask assistant referees to judge anything other than ‘part of the body’ being offside. But with the semi-automated tech now we could judge it on feet and avoid people being offside because they have bigger hair, a fatter arse or knobblier knees than the defender.”

I’ve now got a mental image of a team holding a horizontal Peter Crouch and using him as a lance to attack headers.

76 min Our man on the ground says:

The pro-Iran crowd here at Los Angeles Stadium has sprung to life after that red card. There is spreading a real belief that Iran can get something, maybe even a famous win, out of this game.

75 min A ball into the box from Ghoddos and Jahanbakhsh is up … but his header is tame.

73 min Belgium send on Theate for the exhausted Lukaku. They can probably afford to lose this because they should sort New Zealand in their final game, but they’re struggling to build momentum.

71 min So, do Iran go for the win, potentially exposing themselves, or do they keep doing what they’re doing, hoping for a point, then go for Egypt in the final game? My sense is the latter, but if I was caught up in the game, I’m sure I’d say the former.

69 min What a chance this is for Iran. In Ngoy’s defence, once he’s made the error I don’t think he has a choice – with 21 minutes to go, Belgium have a better chance of a point at 0-0 with 10 menthan at 0-1 with 11.

66 min Two more changes for Iran, Mohebi and Hajisafi off with Torabi and Mohammadi on.

65 min Lukebakio tries a curler, seeking the far corner, and again, Beiranvend is equal to the effort, palming away, then Iran win a corner, send it to the back stick, and Khalilzadeh is up … but heads wide.

63 min “Poor old Andrew Cole always got harshly judged,” reckons Dennis Hamer. “I think because he was an efficient but unpretty finisher, really good at toe poke type shots and the like – Ronaldo 1 was the same, of course, but people never seemed to mind as much.”

He did have a slightly fidgety style, but he really suffered form Glenn Hoddle saying he needed six or seven chances to score a single goal. Which, if true, told us he had brilliant movement and anticipation – he did – and it’s worth bearing in mind his numbers were always high, without penalties.

59 min HOW DO BELGIUM FAIL TO SCORE?! A lovely pass over the top from Trosard is gorgeously controlled by De Bruyne, a single caress taming it close to the by-line. He crosses low and hard, but somehow, Nemati blocks then, when De Cuyper shoots from close range, Beirenvand somehow leaps from the ground to palm away. That is ludicrous behaviour from the keeper, who’s having a stormer.

58 min Changes for Belgium, Meunier, Raskin and Saelemaekers going off with Castagne, Lukebakio and Vanaken replacing them.

57 min I see the Courtois save again, a beat away from a Taremi swivel-and-shot.

55 min “It is absolutely ridiculous that your butt can be offside,” reckons Robin Griller. “The rule should be simplified to: if neither of your feet are offside, you are not offside, in which case GOOOOAAALLLL!!!!!”

It’s always been any part of your body with which you can legally play the ball, which I think is fair in concept, but perhaps feet would simplify things. It’d be a better tweak to the law than Wenger’s, I think.

53 min Courtois saves Belgium again! I don’t actually see what happens because my coverage jumps, we’ve not been allowed a replay, and there’s no option to take coverage backwards, but I see the ball hit the keeper, hard.

51 min How Belgium wish they still had Marouane Fellaini; at 38, I reckon he could still do a job off the bench but, alas, he’s retired. Back in the now, Tielemans cleverly allows the ball through his legs and De Bruyne crosses for Trossard who can’t quite get his head around it, sending an effort over … then the flag goes up for offside.

50 min This time, he raises both arms and drills a ridiculous pass over the Saelemaekers at the back post, who makes decent connection with his volley but doesn’t have enough angle with which to play, lashing into the near-post side-netting.

49 min De Bruyne’s delivery is good, but when the ball is headed behind for a corner, his next effort is poor … but it wins him a further opportunity.

47 min Trossard is down and looks in pain, head down and body shaking. I didn’t quite see what happened, but just as I’m fearing for him he begins the long ascent to uprightness, then we see studs raked down his calf, a huge hole ripped in his sock. Free-kick Belgium, deep inside the Iran half, out on the right.

47 min Nice from Trossard, who moves infield then feeds De Bruyne outside him; the eventuating shot is blocked by Kanani.

46 min We go again, Iran replacing Hardani with Jahanbakhsh. I wonder if they’re moving to four at the back, because nominally, that’s an attacker for a defender.

Half-time email: Dave Estherby has some thoughts on our prolific scorer/poor finisher conversation: Averaged a goal every two games across his career but couldn’t hit a barn door at Man Utd (or Inter, thinking about it).”

Harsh, I’d say – he wasn’t quite good enough for United, but without him they don’t win the title in 2002-03. He had an unusual ability either to make things happen or turn up as they were happening, but he couldn’t always take advantage. See also: Nuñez, Darwin.

For those wondering, Markwayne was named after his two uncles, and now I wish my parents had called me Davidgeoffrey.

An always-political football team were party to yet another political storyline in the lead-up to this game. Just before kickoff, Iran’s national football federation responded forcefully to comments made by US homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin on Fox News on Sunday, calling them “false, fabricated, and entirely baseless allegations”.

It’s a little unclear from Mullin’s appearance what those allegations really are. Appearing on Fox News, he said that the federation “tried to get somebody in yesterday that they were calling, he was supposed to be the president of the … federation. When we started doing the research on him he had only been put in place since 2022 and we didn’t allow him to board the plane.”

The president of the Iranian football federation since 2022 is Mehdi Taj, who seems to be the person Mullin was referring to. However, Taj was reportedly one of the initial 15 members of the Iran delegation whose US visas were denied, necessitating their move of home base ot Mexico just before the tournament. That status reportedly had not changed in the buildup to Iran’s second match.

Mullin later alleged that a person trying to get on the team plane had “direct ties to the IRGC”, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In its statement, the federation called the allegation that a person was denied entry “an outright and undeniable lie” and demanded evidence of the claimed IRGC ties.

45+8 min Ngoy finds De Bruyne down the left with a fine pass, the cross is decent too … but Lukaku can’t quite get at it.

45+7 min Iran get the ball forward, a good 30 seconds consumed in the process. Belgium have, I think, approached breaking them down in the right way, but they’ve lacked a bit of quality, while the box-defending has been good.

45+5 min Nice from Belgium, Ngoy punching a pass seeking Saelemaekers, cunningly touched into his path by Meunier. But as he nashes into space down the right, the flag goes up for offside, and Iran will shortly be halfway there.

45+3 min If they can refrain from conceding in the next five minutes, Iran can be very pleased with their first-half efforts. As I type, Belgium go again with a pass into Lukaku, on the edge, who does well to turn and beat one challenge. But as he tries to bundle though a second, Kanani, Ezatolahi and Nemati gang up and crowd him out.

45+1 min We’ll have eight additional minutes.

45 min “The letter of the law was upheld on Taremi’s strike, but surely not the spirit of the law,” reckons Stefan Martens.. If only Arsene Wenger’s daylight offside rule, as piloted right now in the Canadian Premier League, were in effect here, we’d have been treated to a delightful goal.

Still, if Fifa can invent a peace prize to give to Donald Trump, I demand an award for best moment at the World Cup. In that case, Iran’s free kick would certainly be in the running (alongside my other main candidate, Behruzjon Karimov’s thunderstrike against Colombia).”

I’m afraid I can’t agree with this – I loved the idea and execution, but it needed to be perfect and wasn’t. More generally, I think Wenger’s innovation gives the attacker too much of an advantage – I want the game to be balanced more than I want to see more goals.

44 min Tielemans in behind for De Cuyper, whose instashot is drilled hard … and intro Beiranvad’s chest. Then, when Belgium go again, Saelemaekers’ shot is blocked by Hajisafi.

42 min De Cuyper, out on the touchline, rips a terrific pass over the top for De Bruyne, attacking the space in behind for the first time. He doesn’t quite track it over his shoulder, though, waving a toe at it and conceding a goalkick.

40 min “Robson-Kanu!!” screams Matt Dony. “Turns out scoring beautiful goals on the turn against Belgium at major tournaments isn’t for everyone…”

I love the name Robson-Kanu on the basis a chimera of Bryan and Nwankwo might be my favourite combination of any two players I could possibly think of.

39 min De Bruyne allows De Cuyper to take it, and Iran clear his delivery easily enough.

38 min De Bruyne hurdles by Hajisafi, who manages to bring him down anyway. Free-kick Belgium, 25 yards out, left of centre.

37 min Iran, I think, did well for the break to come when it did, Belgium forced to get themselves going again. Their defensive discipline has been good so far.

35 min Duncan McQueen reckons Andy Cole is a prolific striker with dodgy finishing, a suggestion I couldn’t agree with less. An absolutely brilliant finisher – 41 goals in 93-94, when he was mainly a one-touch merchant, but by the time he bagged 24 in 98-99 and 22 in 99-00, he was scoring goals only he could – in the second of those, he managed three overhead kicks before Xmas.

33 min Tielemans allows the ball to run past him, turning Ezatolahi in the process … who pulls him back and is booked.

31 min Tell you what, though, in the UK this is rapidly becoming Emma Hayes time, and she shows us that Meunier is inverting to allow an extra man on the last line. Then, showing here growing confidence in doing her own thing, she thanks her dad on Father’s Day for giving her the confidence to do what she does, turning around to reveal the words “SHE’LL CHANGE THE WORLD” on the back of her top. She is brilliant.

30 min Just as I’m checking they’ve not cancelled the ad breaks without telling me, the ref blows for one. The roof is on, the aircon likewise.

29 min Shock survived, Belgium are right back on to the attack, Meunier crossing from the right seeking Lukaku, and Beiranvand claiming confidently.

26 min But was Taremi offside? Back to goal, I fear his buttocks have let him down.

24 min Rezaeian manages to direct the ball into Raskin’s hand – not enough for a free-kick, in mine, but the ref gives on and Iran have a free-kick 25 yards out…

22 min And here come Belgium again, Tielemans picked out on the left side of the box. He shoots with his laces, but Beirenvand shoves around the near post for a corner … which comes to nowt.

21 min Again, Belgium have Iran boxed, and they’re trying to pop the ball about quickly, combination play one of the main ways low blocks are deconstructed. The power on the passes has been a little too much so far, but that’s the side on which to err – when played well, the pace allows the recipient to use it to shift and shoot.

19 min "“Starting with Lukaku is a bad idea, reckons Krisnamoorthy V. “He is likely to now earn a 2nd yellow card and leave Belgium to play with 10 men. Lukaku is a super sub and that’s what his role should be. If he makes it to half-time without another yellow , the wisest thing would be to bring him off.”

I’m not sure about that – he’s not someone i associate with ill discipline. Ill finishing, for sure – I can’t think of anyone as prolific whose goalscoring I believe in less – but I don’t expect him to let his team down by getting himself dismissed.

17 min Tielemans tries a pass through the middle, seeking to meet Lukaku’s run, but puts just too much on it.

15 min Rezaeian’s corner is a goodun too, picking out Ezatolahi at the back post … but he can only head wide of it.

14 min But here come Iran, Lukaku heading clear Taremi’s cross, but Iran sustain the attack, sending the ball back into the box, and after a bobble or two, it drops for Kanani, up with the attack for reasons known best to himself, and on the half-turn he shoots. It looks like Courtois has gone too late but, perhaps minding the unusual flight of the ball they’re using, almost waits for it to bounce before plunging to his right and tipping behind. Excellent save.

14 min I can’t think of a game for which Doku’s illness could be less convenient. His explosive ability to change directions and slow up defenders before blazing by, conjuring space in the process, is the perfect antidote to a massed defence.

12 min I really like the intensity with which Belgium have started. There’s a tempo and conviction to their passing, Meunier having a cross blocked; Iran try to counter, but quickly lose the ball. They win it back, though, and try taking some heat out of proceedings, knocking it about their defence.

11 min Now it’s Lukaku having a shot blocked, Kanani doing a really good job to extend his leg, but this is maturing into an onslaught.

9 min Trossard wriggles down the left and cuts back, De Bruyne opening his body to glance a shot goalwards; Beiranvand saves, then De Cuyper’s follow-up effort is blocked.

8 min “In the dead of winter 1974,” writes Gary Stover, “my wife and I spent six weeks travelling from village to village in Iran, on public buses, buying antique carpets to ship back to London to sell. We had not one word of Farsi. The Iranian people welcomed us, helped us in every way. I think these guys are playing for them, Daniel, the Iranian people.”

That’s a lovely anecdote, but my (limited) understanding of the situation us that the status of the team is a little more complex and contested than that.

Back with the game, De Bruyne belts a shot over the top, but his team have started commandingly.

7 min We’re back under way, Belgium again on the attack.

5 min I wonder how fit Lukaku is – before he came on in the first game, he’d not played in months, but Belgium need him firing, badly. His performance against Brazil in 2018 is one of my favourites in recent World Cups but, I’m afraid, was something a big-game outlier for him and followed by a collective no-show in the semi against France.

3 min De Cuyper swings in and Taremi heads clear then, when the ball comes out, De Bruyne curls an absolute brute into the corridor, Beiranvand diving and Lukaku sliding in, introducing studs to sternum. It’s a right sair yin, with a knee to chin behind it, but the yellow card feels harsh to me – the ball was there to win, he had every right to go for it, and it’s a contact sport. But the keeper is down, taking treatment; I think he’ll be OK.

2 min A Belgium attack breaks down and immediately, the ball is humped long for Taremi, Mechele getting to it first, and within seconds Saelemaekers wins a corner.

1 min Belgium set us away in an absolute behemoth of a ground stadium.

Anthem time!

Our teams are tunnelled … and here they come!

So where is the game? I don’t love the Belgium defence, and I’d expect Taremi to attack the space in behind the centre-backs. Mechele lacks a bit of pace, while Ngoy doesn’t have much experience at this level, so a wily so-an-so of his ilk will fancy the task. I’d also expect the full-backs to support the wide midfielders when they can, looking to put crosses into the box.

Belgium, meanwhile, need to find a way around or through a massed defence. I’m sure they’ll want De Bruyne to arc balls in for Lukaku, with him and Tielemans also a shooting threat from the edge. I also expect Trossard to be buzzing about, looking to passes in behind, shots into the far corner, and rebounds from any blocks of keeper spillages.

Also going on:

I’d not be unkeen to hear Keane’s take on England cricket’s latest fiasco…

In fairness, Keane does apply this standard to himself. Musing on his performance in the second leg of the 1999 Champions League semi, Alex Ferguson wrote:

Running every blade of grass, competing as if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose. He inspired all around him. I felt it was an honour to be associated with this player.”

And Keane’s response?

Stuff like that kind of almost insults me. What am I supposed to do? Give up? Not cover every blade of the grass? Not do my best for my teammates? Not too much to ask from a club. To be honest, I actually get offended when people throw quotes like that at me, as if I’m supposed to be honoured by it. It’s like praising the postman for delivering your letters he’s supposed to, isn’t he? That’s his job. My job was to win football matches for Man United.”

Ahahaha, as if on cue, just after we see an interview in which Declan Rice extols Thomas Tuchel’s preparation and communication, there’s Roy to remind us that it’s what he’s paid to do. Or, in other words, it’s impossible for anyone to excel, ever.

A question: what is the ideal time for World Cup matches? This is a tricky one wherever in the world we are because it exists over multiple zones and I can’t say I don’t miss the working day joy but, as I say below, the security of knowing that, come teatime, there’s a feast of to assault, is a banging feeling.

Hayes is working tonight and so is Roy Keane – a happy chance, given the Father’s Day card my buddy Tinny received this morning.

In the UK, the undoubted star has been the wonderful Emma Hayes. I remember the first time I heard her co-commentate, many years ago now on BBC radio. Her ability to identify what sets the pattern of a match, simplifying complex tactical plans without being patronising, but making clear she’s the expert and compelling us to listen, is unique.

If I’m honest, I can’t say I love Henry as a pundit, though I think he’s got loads better lately. It’s brilliant when ex-players get into coaching and become obsessed with the detail – their punditry goes to an entirely different level, as we’ve seen in the UK with Robbie Savage.

We’ll go into a little more tactical detail in due course. But in the meantime, I enjoyed this piece on Henry v Lalas almost as much as Aaron Timms enjoyed writing it.

The switch to a more defensive formation makes perfect sense – Belgium are are far bigger attacking threat than Egypt, so the plan is to absorb pressure and try for something on the counter or from a set-piece. If they can get something from the game, great, but if not, they’d have taken a win or bust against Egypt in match three.

Iran, meanwhile, make three changes. In defence, Rezeaelen is out, with Hardani in, while the change in formation, 4-4-2 to 5-4-1, sees Kanani also picked, with Yousefi excluded from midfield; and finally, Moghanlu is sent to the bench, with Hajisafi making space.

Rudi Garcia, the Belgium manager, makes four changes to the side which drew with Egypt. At right-back, Castagne is replaced by De Cuyper; in the pivot, it’s Raskin not Onana; Doku is ill, so Saelemaekerrs comes in; and up front, Lukaku is fit enough to start, so De Ketelaere drops out.

In Atlanta, a tousing is being administered.