European champions Spain registered twenty-seven shots against World Cup debutants Cape Verde and scored exactly none of them, which is less a football match and more a live demonstration of how to lose a pillow fight against a brick wall. Seven on target, a Ferran Torres effort off the crossbar, Oyarzabal and Laporte denied repeatedly, and at the end of it all the scoreboard read nothing to nothing. La Roja did everything except the one thing the sport is named after.

Standing in the way was Vozinha, a forty year old goalkeeper having the night of his life, throwing limbs and dignity at everything Spain sent his way. Cape Verde, a country of just over five hundred thousand people, parked, blocked, and survived against one of the most expensive starting elevens on the planet, and walked away with a point that will be talked about on the islands for a generation.

For Spain this is the cautionary tale every favourite pretends will never happen to them. Total control, total territory, total possession, and a total inability to convert any of it into the one number that counts. You can dominate a match into oblivion and still get nothing if the ball refuses to cross the line.