World Cup analysis: Four questions that will decide all in Qatar

By the time Sunday dawned in Al Khor and English and French bodies emptied from the surface and the stands, just four teams remained alive. By Wednesday night there will be just a pair - Qatar's final pairing.

UNSTOPPABLE? France's Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann celebrate. Pic: Mike Egerton/PA Wire.

Having learned what rest feels like, Qatar is leaning into it. Seventeen unceasing days of action have given way to something entirely different: just two days of quarter-final football sandwiched between a couple of rest days either side.

Friday and Saturday here served up a quartet of games that would have lived up to the March Madness moniker for the same stage — elite eight. In each of their own ways, they served up tension and tears, drama and shocking denouements, the best saved for last when England and France gave us a contest of the kind of quality that made it fit for a final.