The 2026 FIFA World Cup has gotten off to a flying start on the pitch. With so much happening every day, ESPN India attempts to pick out the one magical moment that defined the day's action.
For Day 17, we pick the incredible ending to Austria vs Algeria, capped off with Sasa Kalajdzic's goal.
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Austria couldn't believe what had just happened. After more than half an hour of nothingness, their match against Algeria was drifting to an amicable 2-2 draw -- a result that would see them both progress to the knockouts of the 2026 FIFA World Cup -- when Riyad Mahrez entered a time machine to finish a Houssem Aouar through ball with typical aplomb.
93 minutes in, 2-2 had become 3-2 to Algeria and Austria were out of the World Cup. They couldn't believe it, their fans' faces a mix of shock and disbelief and deep sadness. More than 2500 kms away from where all this was unfolding, though, at a training base in Tijuana, Mexico, a whole different national team was celebrating. For at 2-2, Iran had been out of the World Cup, but at 3-2, they were right back in it as one of the third-placed sides.
As the Algerians celebrated and the ref's clock ticked away, Austrian manager Ralf Rangnick looked to his bench and realised it was kitchen sink time. And he then proceeded to throw one of the biggest the World Cup has seen on to the pitch. At 6'7" there's no missing Sasa Kalajdzic, and in the 95th on he strode for his first ever World Cup minute.
That Kalajdzic was making it onto the pitch was a miracle unto itself. Over the past eight years, he'd gone from bright young talent, Austrian football's best forward, to a journeyman resuscitating his career in the Austrian league. It started when he suffered a metatarsal fracture and quickly following that an ankle ligament tear at his boyhood Admira Wacker in 2018. He then ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in 2019, before returning the following year to score enough goals that in 2022, Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers came calling. On Prem debut for Wolves, he did the same ACL again. He returned to action a year later and was sent out loan to Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt. A month into the loan the ACL tore again.
Three ACL tears, a foot fracture and an ankle ligament tear behind him, he was now, in 2026, no longer the best forward in Austrian football. His last goal for Austria had come in 2021 (a consolation against Italy in Euro 2020) and he'd scored just eleven goals in the past four years.
The clock turned over to the sixth minute of four added on as he lumbered into the box, and as a cross flew well over his head and over to the far post, Austrian hearts sank. Surely, they were out. Over in Tijuana, Iran must have been sure too that they were still in this tournament. As the ball reached the far post, though, big Michael Gregoritsch (4 inches shorter than Kalajdzic, but at 6'3" still tall enough to reach that floater) headed it back into the box.
And there, anticipating Gregoritsch's header back when no one else in the box had, was Kalajdzic. His knee and ankle and foot may have betrayed him many-a-time over the past decade, but the goalscorer's instinct had never left. As the ball reached the edge of the six-yard box, he leaned forward and placed a perfect header back the way it had come. Too tall for his marker to trouble, the placement of his header completely caught out Oussama Benbot in Algeria's goal.
3-2 had become 3-3, and in three minutes the agony of exit had twisted right back to the ecstasy of qualification, for Austria. Over in Tijuana -- where they had oscillated between faith and despair till the 93rd minute and then being sure of going through, only for that dream to be punctured inside three further minutes -- it would be the exact opposite.
As Kalajdzic wheeled away in celebration, disbelief and joy and incredulousness writ large on his face, and those of their fans, the neutrals spared a thought for Iran, for Mehdi Taremi (captain, talisman) or Shoja Khalilzadeh (who'd seen that last-minute winner ruled out) or any of those Iranian faces that had imprinted on our memory over the past few days... Agony and ecstasy. Ecstasy and agony. Austria's collective joy and Kalajdzic's personal redemption vs the pain of Iran's loss. The depth of human feeling reaching both ends, for two different nations, in the space of 180 seconds.
The World Cup. There really is nothing quite like it.