For one of the Portland Timbers in Russia, the World Cup is over; at least, the competitive part of it is. With today’s 1-0 loss to France, Andy Polo's Peru sits four points behind second-place Denmark in Group C. With one match left in group play, the Blanquirroja has no path to the second round.
Throughout the tournament, in our various daily updates, we’ve talked about the tournament format: how it quickly becomes unforgiving, magnifying the small differences between countries who, because of stylistically differences, lack of familiarity with each other, and their general quality, are not so different in quality than each other.