What happened overnight?
Russia opened their campaign in emphatic fashion, thrashing Saudi Arabia 5-0 in front of 78-thousand enraptured fans at Moscow's Luzhniki Arena.
The hosts could hardly have dreamt of a better start to their home tournament, putting the Saudis to the sword with the last two goals coming in added time.
Hero
Introduced after just 24 minutes from the bench, Russian striker Denis Cheryshev scored two outstanding goals.
First he jinked around three hapless defenders to fire Russia's second into the roof of the net, before producing an early contender for goal of the tournament, curling a sublime left-footed strike into the top corner in the first minute of injury time.
Cheryshev has lived in Spain since he was five and the Villarreal man stamped his mark on the tournament in little over an hour.