By the end, the chaos and drama that has followed Iran off the field at this World Cup could not compare to that on it.
Twice in the space of an extraordinary 24 hours, the Iranian players thought they had clinched a place in the tournament's knockout stages for the first time in their history. And twice that dream was snatched away in heartbreaking circumstances.
Iran are out of the World Cup and, if you believe Mehdi Taremi , their captain, Fifa and co-hosts the US might just be pleased that they are .
Against Egypt at Lumen Field in Seattle on Friday night local time, a 37-year-old Shoja Khalilzadeh thought he had scored the most famous goal in Iranian football history when he fired home after a frantic goalmouth scramble.
There were 93 minutes on the clock and Iran appeared to have secured passage to the round of 32. Then a Polish VAR intervened and they were not
Khalilzadeh, it turned out, was the width of a razor blade offside. Even then, Iran were not done. In the seventh minute of added time, Saeid Ezatolahi thought he had claimed a remarkable winner only to watch his thumping header cannon off the crossbar and over.
Saeid Ezatolahi's last-gasp header cannoned into the crossbar - Lisi Niesner/Reuters
Suddenly, Iran's fate lay in the hands of others. "I feel sad but we have hope," Taremi said. All they needed was one of three scenarios to materialise.
Yet as Saturday gradually unfolded, those hopes began to recede. First Croatia beat Ghana , then DR Congo overcame Uzbekistan . It left Iran's hopes hanging on Algeria's meeting with Austria in Kansas City not ending in a draw.
Iranian State TV even aired a segment in Arabic asking Algeria to help a "fellow Muslim brotherly nation" by defeating Ralf Rangnick's side.
There was an added twist to the occasion, too. Algeria were the victims in the "Disgrace of Gijon" at the 1982 World Cup, when Austria and West Germany appeared to collude to play out a listless game that resulted in both advancing and the African side being eliminated. The scandal prompted Fifa to change the tournament rules so that final group games are played simultaneously.
Forty-four years on, Algeria and Austria knew a point each would be enough to secure safe passage through to the knockout rounds and, for Iran, the fear must have been of both teams downing tools and forming their own non-aggression pact.
There was little evidence of that in the first hour. Twice Austria led and twice Algeria pegged them back. Both fought gamely.
Once play resumed following the second-half hydration break, the first whiff of a truce emerged with sideways passes following sideways passes and the intensity draining from the game. But it would not remain that way. Far from it.
As the game entered stoppage time, Iran must have been fearing the worst. Then, in the 93rd minute, Riyad Mahrez seemed to have won it for Algeria, presumably prompting scenes of wild delirium among the Iran ranks watching on television back at their team base in Tijuana, Mexico ; 3-2 and Iran were going through. Or so they thought.
Iran fans in Tehran celebrated thinking their team were heading into the knockouts - Majid Asgaripour/Reuters
In the 96th minute, Wolves striker Sasa Kalajdzic headed home an equaliser to make it 3-3 and provide a stunning denouement, crush Iranian hearts in the process and add to their tales of agonising World Cup near misses.
Frustration and resentment at their treatment by World Cup organisers at this tournament has been bubbling for weeks and one suspects that they may have a lot more to say in the days ahead.
Early on, Amir Ghalenoei, the Iran coach, described his team as the "most oppressed" of the 48 competing nations. Taremi, meanwhile, described the tournament as a "disaster" from Iran's perspective.
Taremi then went even further after the Egypt match, claiming the feeling among the Iran players was that Fifa and the US authorities did not want them there and took aim at Gianni Infantino, the world governing body's president, for failing to deliver on his promises.
The denial of visas to 11 staff and the relocation of their training base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana before the start of the tournament have been suboptimal for the Iranians to say the least, with Taremi saying the situation has directly affected them on the pitch.
Equally, it has felt like Iran were never going to pass up an opportunity to take very public potshots at the US on such a global platform.
The grandstanding has been perhaps best encapsulated by the handwritten letters left in the dressing room after their games against Belgium and Egypt and a series of social media messages posted from Team Melli 's official Instagram account.
The message being pumped out by the Iran Football Federation going into Egypt game, for example, could not have been starker.
They would be playing for the 168 children killed at an elementary school on the first day of the US-Iran conflict at the end of February. "The Team That Never Grew Up" read the Instagram post, alongside the names and pictures of 11 nine-year-old children.
Another image showed Taremi and the rest of the team standing in front of multi-coloured children's school backpacks as a symbolic tribute to the victims of the attack in Minab.
On the streets around Lumen Field before kick-off against Egypt – and through the protests in Los Angeles before the New Zealand and Belgium matches – the rhetoric could not have been more different.
Opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran demonstrated with banners drawing attention to the atrocities committed by the government and called for regime change.
Opponents of the Iranian regime have demonstrated with banners - Mike Blake/Reuters
Thousands of protesters were killed during anti-government demonstrations in January as security forces used deadly force to quell the country's largest uprising since the 1979 revolution.
At Iran's games, opponents of the government booed the national anthem. Others held aloft pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flags that have become a symbol of resistance to the current rulers. Nor will Iran going home silence them.
On the pitch, Iran's players demonstrated great fight to perform like they did in trying circumstances.
Yet it has also been hard to escape the feeling that Team Melli have been a very convenient propaganda tool for an Iranian regime that has just so happened to be at war with the country reluctantly hosting them at the World Cup this summer.
