The banner high in the stands at Guadalajara read "3 million dreams." What unfolded on the pitch beneath it was a recurring nightmare. Uruguay needed a win against Spain to survive. They managed two shots on target — neither before the 80th minute, neither carrying even a whisper of danger.

That, in its brutal simplicity, tells you everything about how this campaign ended. The decisive moment arrived just before half-time, when 40-year-old goalkeeper Fernando Muslera let Álex Baena's shot slip through his hands and into the net. It was the kind of mistake that defines a tournament, and it defined this one. Muslera himself had asked to be taken off at the break.

His fourth World Cup was over. But the guilt, as coach Marcelo Bielsa acknowledged, was never his alone. "It's my responsibility," Bielsa said. "We had a potential that I didn't manage to turn into a team that played to its level.

" A squad that was divided and dysfunctional had never really been a team at all. Federico Valverde was withdrawn on the hour against his will, pulling his shirt over his mouth as he walked off — a vivid, wordless verdict on a brief and disastrous campaign. Uruguay had beaten and battered their opponents rather than outplayed them. Nico Williams left the pitch limping; Yéremy Pino departed with his arm in a sling.

Spain were bruised but through, as they were always going to be, and will now face Algeria or Austria in Los Angeles. As the final whistle blew, the Guadalajara crowd began chanting a name — not Spain's, but Cape Verde's. That sound was Uruguay's real verdict. For the second consecutive World Cup, they have fallen at the group stage, and this time there are no convenient excuses, no powerful opponents to blame, no arithmetic to hide behind.