It's not often something really grabs my attention by filling me with unquenchable schadenfreude, but last night the miracle happened.
Germany, long seen as one of the most dependable teams in tournament football having won the World Cup 4 times and humiliating Brazil 7-1 in Belo Horizonte just 3 world cups ago, were dumped out of the tournament last night by minnows Paraguay.
La Albirroja by contrast have only qualified for the World Cup 8 times before this current tournament and half of those previous adventures were cut short in the Group Stage, with their only foray past the last-16 coming in their most recent appearance back in 2010.
This latest appearance for the Men from Asuncion did not start off especially well with the main hosts running out 4-1 winners in a match where Paraguay even started their opponents off with an own goal just 9 minutes in.
A slim 1-0 win against TĂĽrkiye and a 0-0 draw in their final group match against The Socceroos hardly did much to instill any confidence in their ability to rack up their second ever knockout stage win even before people realised they were up against the mighty Germans.
Germany's path to the knockouts was a smidgen smoother than their conquerors, but not much
Starting against minnows Curacao with their second 7-1 scoreline in recent memory would have filled many teams with fear, though others would say you can only beat what is in front of you...
They showed proper grit in their next game to come from behind and beat Ivory Coast 2-1 with a 94th minute winner, this was a team showing that they never know when they're beaten and that in Deniz Undav they had a mercurial talent that could finish any game for them.
Then they headed to New Jersey for their final group game against a misfiring Ecuador, that had been held to a 0-0 draw just 5 days beforehand by the same Curacao team Germany had blown away in their opener.
On paper there was only one winner, but this beautiful game of ours isn't played on paper....
On the grass Germany lost, 2-1 to a 77th minute winner courtesy of Gonzalo Jordy Plata Jiménez.
That win for Ecuador would have sent alarm bells ringing for the Germans and their hopes of making a deep run, especially as they were set up for a showdown with France or Sweden when they made it to the last 16.
For most of the world that really was a when and not any kind of if, after all it was only Paraguay.... but no-one told the Paraguayans that.
I had the match on in the background and only really tuned into it properly when Ensico fired Paraguay ahead on 42 minutes, when the sound of the fans celebrating grabbed me by the shirt collar.
That seemed to spark Germany into life and they equalised through Arsenal's Kai Havertz less than 10 minutes after the restart and had long periods of dominance throughout the second half.
They could not turn any of that dominance into another goal before the ref blew the whistle for full-time, but they had the ball in the net through Jonathan Tah's header from point blank range off the back of an excellent corner delivery.
It looked like a great goal just before half-time in Extra-Time of the kind that great tournament teams, like Germany, have in their arsenal to get them over the line when it really matters, but the VAR had other ideas...
Even on seeing the slo-mo replays of the corner and the goal I could see nothing that constituted the foul the refs could see, sure the goalkeeper had an attacker on him but if you rule the goal out for that you'd have to rule out 90% of the set piece goals scored in the Premier League last season, surely not?
Apparently so....
It was the softest foul I have seen in a long-time and one heck of a let off for Paraguay, but the South Americans would make excellent use of it.
They dug in resolutely for the rest of Extra-Time and secured the lottery of penalties, though this should have been scant reward as Germany practically own progression on penalties at major tournaments, this is their bread and butter.
Well it is normally, but then Havertz missed the first kick of the shoot-out and after 3 spot kicks each Germany knew they had to score to avoid putting Paraguay in a score and win situation, but Woltemade saw his penalty saved....
This left Paraguay with the advantage of knowing that, no matter what Germany did all they had to do was score with either of their next 2 and they would be through to the next round..... so of-course they fluffed their lines both times and took things into sudden death.
The taker of their 5th penalty was Fabian Balbuena, who had been brought on in the 122nd minute specifically for the shootout and when he missed I thought the dream was over
Jonathan Tah, scorer of the disallowed goal in Extra-Time stepped up to avenge that injustice only to sky his shot having sent the keeper the wrong way, he had done everything right only to prove incapable of keeping it down.
The saying '3 is a magic number' is famous in the UK and last night proved just how true that is for Paraguayans too.
Having trusted their first chance to win to a forward and the second to their penalty specialist they chose a centre-back to entrust the magical chance too and he made no mistake sending Manuel Neuer the wrong way and smashing the ball into the roof of the net to send his nation into rapturous extasy and the entire footballing world into a state of delirious shock.
On paper this match was a mismatch of epic proportions, but on grass it turned into a historical moment of monumental beauty.
Paraguay will never forget this result, Germany will never forget this national embarrassment and maybe Brazil will see it as their fellow South Americans helping them avenge their own 2014 humiliation at German hands.
However, for myself this match will forever be known as Das deutsche Desaster
The Football tourist 