It’s fall 2017. My friend James and I are at the Black Horse Pub in Brooklyn watching Tottenham Hotspur play Chelsea at Wembley, Tottenham’s temporary home stadium. We have breakfast food in front of us to justify our seats. On the televisions above the bar, Chelsea wins a free kick right outside the box in Tottenham’s half. Left back Marcos Alonso lines up the shot.

I say to James, “They always take their time lining up these free kicks and nothing ever comes of them.”

Alonso takes the shot and scores.

I believe during the Champions League loss to Juventus, while it was still a tie I said something to the effect of, “Well, we’ll soon see what this team is made of, I think they can come back.” Minutes later, Juventus scored to win the game and eliminate us from the tournament.

Superstition has since dictated the things I am allowed to say during games to James. If we are playing well, I have to say, “We look awful, we’re going to lose.” I try to force bad juju on opposing stars. “Eden Hazard is amazing! He’s going to score seven goals on us today!” It keeps the nerves settled and is good for loss karma.

All of this is to say that I should have known better than to tempt fate by saying Christiano Ronaldo never scores on free kicks. I said it in a Facebook status. Then, towards the end of today’s Spain Portugal game, after a foul by Gerard Pique, Portugal was awarded a free kick a dangerous distance to goal, right outside the box. As soon as Ronaldo lined it up, I knew that I was going to eat my words.

And I did. That free kick was beautiful. I should have kept my mouth shut.

I wore my Portugal jersey to work today to curse them (read up on my jersey curse here) but much like the Euro final in 2016 (the last time I wore it) it was ineffective. Ronaldo had a historic game.

I thought Spain was the superior team and I thought Ronaldo’s penalty was suspect but it was a hell of a game.

(Tonight, while grocery shopping, I got a call from my friends because their six year old son wanted to talk about soccer with me. “Why do you not like Ronaldo?” he asked. “Probably because he thinks he’s so great, like he’s the best.” And he paused, “But he is the best.” And I had nothing to say to that.)

In the other games, Uruguay could only get one goal against a Salah-less Egypt, which doesn’t bode well for the strength of that team. But a win is a win.

I didn’t watch Morocco versus Iran but, while walking through my office, I saw on the big screen in our lobby the own goal in the 95th minute that gave Iran the win. Morocco versus Iran is not exactly the fixture that everyone was waiting for in the 2018 tournament but heartbreak is heartbreak and that’s an awful result for any team.

I’m liking Spain going forward in this World Cup. Portugal, on the other hand, will need Ronaldo to keep coming up with magic performances like today, which he may very well do.

On to tomorrow’s quadruple header…