11 min This is a really fun game. Iliman Ndiaye receives Diarra’s pass on the right and hits a brilliant cross that is crying out for the Keith Houchen treatment. Alas for Senegal, there’s nobody in there.

9 min Trossard screws a shot from the edge of the area that is comfortably held by Diaw. Moments before that, De Ketelaere used the overlapping Castagne by not using him but then dithered for a split-second and was well challenged.

6 min Trossard gets away on the right and drives a cutback that is also cut out. Belgium’s contrasting wide forwards, Doku and Trossard, are such an important part of their team.

4 min “I agree with Simon McMahon about the match timings,” writes Andy Gordon, “and trying to figure out the conversion into Central European Time whilst on holiday meant I was sitting on my own in a restaurant with a TV two hours before the England kick off this afternoon. France and Pixies for me.”

3 min Doku zips into the area from the left and slides a low cross that is cut out. Both sides have started brightly.

1 min Peep peep! Belgium kick off from left to right as we watch. This could be a cracker.

A reminder of the teams, who are entering the field as I type

Belgium (poss 4-2-3-1) Courtois; Castagne, Mechele, Theate, De Cuyper; Tielemans, Vanaken; Trossard, De Bruyne, Doku; De Ketelaere.

Subs: Lammens, Penders, Meunier, De Winter, Seys, Ngoy, Witsel, Moreira, Saelemaekers, Raskin, Onana, Lukaku, Lukebakio, Fernandez-Pardo.

Senegal (poss 4-3-3) Diaw; Diatta, Ciss, Niakhate, Jacobs; Diarra, I Gueye, P Gueye; I Ndiaye, I Sarr, Mane.

Subs: Diouf, M Sarr, Koulibaly, Seck, Mendy, Malick Diouf, Camara, P Sarr, B Ndiaye, Diao, Dieng, Jackson, C Ndiaye, Mbaye.

Referee Said Martinez (Honduras).

“Well, I’m going to come right out and say that I’ve never heard of Sparklehorse,” says Charles Antaki. “There; that’s me disqualified as an aging hipster, or a hipster of any variety. So I looked them up, and there’s a couple of videos online which feature faux-naif montages (at least I assume they are faux), one of them unfortunately featuring many shots of a man in clown make-up wearing a Stetson. Anyway: the music is rather beguiling, in a rather melancholy way. Good for the calm-down after the England excitement and associated hoo-hah.”

If you’re calling me a hipster, Charles, your vocabulary is nowhere near as precise as I thought. As for Sparklehorse, there’s a discordant beauty to his music that I adore. Not to everyone’s taste though.

The route to glory for Belgium and Senegal

• Last 16 USA/Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Quarter-final Spain/Austria/Portugal/Croatia

• Semi-final Paraguay/France/Canada/Morocco

Blimey department

In the parlance of our time, Tottenham are not messing around this summer.

“Evening Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Not sure what to make of this extended World Cup so far. Been some good games, and performances, but the UK timings have made it difficult for me to feel fully involved. Except when Scotland beat Haiti at 4am and the bottom of my whisky bottle told me we were going to bring it home. Glad to see African teams doing well, and the host countries, but it’s France’s to lose, isn’t it?”

I still think Spain will win it, but I also think Sparklehorse are the greatest band of all time and I doubt that opinion would find favour down the local.

Thomas Tuchel’s mission to put a second World Cup star on the England shirt did not look as though it would reach the second knockout round. On a fraught and chaotic occasion in Atlanta, his team flirted aggressively with disaster. For 75 minutes, England mixed loose defending with an inability to take their chances. Which were plentiful. The Democratic Republic of the Congo goalkeeper, Lionel Mpasi, had the game of his life. Who needs Lionel Messi.

It was easy for England’s long-suffering fans to feel their minds being taken to dark places. Iceland 2016, anyone? They had only ever lost once to an African team – to Senegal in a friendly in June of last year. The DRC, who have brought the romance to this tournament, a team to unite a war-torn nation, led through Brian Cipenga’s seventh-minute goal. They were primed to do something utterly extraordinary.

At which point Harry Kane decided that enough was enough. The England captain was not ready to go home, to be buried under an avalanche of awful headlines. He kept the faith. If he could get another chance, he told himself he would take it.

We can all agree the Geopolitics World Cup has gone on far too long, so Football Daily is pleased to announce it is over. It monopolises everyone’s time, changes sleeping, eating and drinking patterns, leaving everyone tired and poorer. No one wants to stay up for further 2am BST kick-offs or attempt to watch a couple of games a day. Frankly, the process has been completely futile since the first ball was kicked. France have won the tournament; no one can compete with their arousing front four who are, frankly, better than anything else on the planet.

This is the first game of day 21 at the World Cup, with USA v Bosnia and Herzegovina to follow. Ach, who am I kidding.

Belgium had just beaten New Zealand 5-1 to secure top spot in Group G and, at least in theory, an easier last-32 draw, but Rudi Garcia was evidently irked. In response to the first question in a curt post-match press conference, he adjusted the microphone to ensure his point was heard.

“I really didn’t appreciate them being called has-beens,” he said, alluding to an article in La Libre, a French-language Belgian newspaper, that compared Kevin De Bruyne to a washed-up Hollywood actor after a flat display against Iran in their previous match in Los Angeles.

“When a nation has players of that calibre, you support them,” Garcia added, praising the performances of his “four leaders” in De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois and Leandro Trossard, who scored twice against New Zealand; Trossard’s opener represented the first goal Belgium scored themselves at the tournament (after an own goal against Egypt) at the 45th attempt after more than 200 minutes of labouring.