When Wout Weghorst expertly turned in the Dutch equaliser in the eleventh minute of added time, Grant Wahl was as incredulous as the rest of us in the media tribune of the Lusail Stadium.
Sat half a dozen seats to my left, Wahl - a towering figure of football journalism - sent out a tweet, marvelling at the ‘incredible’ moment.
And moments later, he was dead.
For much of extra-time, medics battled to revive him, to no avail.
As bile and bitterness, celebrations and recriminations, engulfed the arena, Wahl was taken to Hamad Hospital but we all knew. We all knew the worst.
And those who were close to Grant, who was 48, had to write about the bitching, the gloating, the moaning, the showboating, the preening, the swearing, down on the pitch, as though it mattered.
Of course it mattered. Mattered to entire nations, to Argentina and to the Netherlands, not that either of them should have generated any neutral admiration, such was the grimness of their antics and histrionics on a long, poisonous night in Doha.
The Lionel Messi dream is still alive and the sheer drama of the hateful contest made it utterly riveting.
And amidst the fighting, the chicanery, the verbal abuse, the con artistry and the dirty tricks, there was the odd footballing moment to appreciate.
Messi’s reverse pass and Nahuel Molina’s finish, Messi’s nonchalant penalty, Weghorst’s startling double, the penalty saves from Emiliano Martinez.
But anyone who considered it a classic had been duped by the emotion of the occasion.
Actually, it was a classic - a classic of the dark arts, a classic of s***housery.
There were two people booked, one of whom was Weghorst, in the first half without even being on the pitch.
Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz, the referee, was widely criticised for losing control of proceedings.
How he was expected to keep control of that lot is anybody’s guess. Everywhere you looked, there was slyness, everywhere you looked, someone was feigning injury - and that includes Messi, by the way. He was far from blameless. Even the classiest turned classless.
How Lahoz did not send anyone off will remain a mystery and, clearly, World Cup VAR is not getting involved in checking possible red cards, otherwise it might have ended up six a side.
If this had been a club match, punishment would follow, if only a heavy financial one.
It should be no different in the international game.
FIFA has to dissect Friday night’s proceedings and hand out sanctions, whether that be suspensions from future international games, fines, whatever.
But the overriding feeling coming away from the Lusail Stadium was wondering if it has come to the stage where teams and individuals will do ANYTHING to win a football match.
Maybe it has always been that way - after all, there have been some brutal, disgraceful, cheat-infested games in this tournament down the decades.
Maybe it is the way, maybe it will always be the way, maybe that is part of what makes football and sport so compelling, so emotional.
In fact, there is probably no maybe about it.
But on a night when someone in the stands died while watching the sport he loved, it made you wonder if, somehow, we could all - including the players - have just a little bit of perspective now and again.
It really isn’t a matter of life and death.
