For 75 minutes the story at the Estadio Akron was a goalkeeper. Then Daniel Muñoz ended it. The Crystal Palace right-back, who grew up in Amalfi in Colombia's coffee-country Antioquia, lashed a right-footed cross-shot from the edge of the box on 76 minutes, Juan Fernando Quintero the architect, and Colombia finally broke a DR Congo wall that had held against a battering.

That the score read only 1-0 owed everything to Lionel Mpasi. The Léopards' keeper made eight saves, five inside the opening 20 minutes — denying Arias, Muñoz, James Rodríguez, Liverpool's Luis Díaz and Gustavo Puerta in a blur. Afrik-Foot noted he was the first World Cup goalkeeper to manage five saves in the first 20 minutes since Jamaica's Warren Barrett against Argentina in 1998. Díaz thought he had a second late on, curling into the top corner, but it was flagged offside — one of five Colombian offsides.

The win sent Colombia through to the Round of 32 atop Group K on six points. "We should have won by a bigger margin, but matches are like that. We were deserving winners," coach Néstor Lorenzo told El Espectador, praising "a magnificent match — Arias, Lerma, Puerta, the whole midfield, even James." Muñoz, modest, told Infobae: "The glory is for God. Nothing is easy, nobody gives you anything." Sébastien Desabre's 5-3-2, so stubborn in the 1-1 with Portugal, generated 0.37 xG; strikers Bakambu, Banza and Wissa managed five box touches between them.

Weird & wonderful

DR Congo's "living statue" superfan Michel Nkuka Mboladinga made his World Cup debut here — he'd missed the opener stuck in Ebola-related quarantine.

The numbers frame a near-total Colombian siege that the scoreboard barely reflects: 64% possession, 20 shots to 7 and 9 on target to 1, yet an xG of just 0.98 hints at how many efforts were rushed or smothered. DR Congo's 0.37 xG and lone shot on target — arriving in stoppage time — underline a 5-3-2 built only to survive. Mpasi's eight saves are the single stat that explains why a one-sided night finished 1-0.