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Today we're reviewing a stirring, roller-coaster World Cup group game: Algeria drew Austria three to three.

Six goals poured forth across the match, the score tugged back and forth all the way, with two of them coming in stoppage time — it had you riding the waves, holding your breath, arguably the craziest fixture of this group stage.

First, let's lay out the things to watch in this match clearly.

The two teams went back and forth, blow for blow; the moment one took the lead, the other bit right on to level, like two arm-wrestlers, neither willing to ease off first.

And the two most dramatic moments were, of all things, saved by fate for the final stoppage time — those brief few minutes added beyond the regulation ninety.

Let's follow the thread of the game.

After kickoff, it was Austria who struck first.

Their veteran striker Arnautović took his chance to break through first, one to zero.

As the first half was drawing to a close, Algeria's Belghali stepped up to level it, one to one, pulling the game back to the same starting line.

After the change of ends, Austria's Sabitzer scored again, two to one, Austria taking the lead for the second time.

But the good times didn't last — Algeria's marquee star Mahrez promptly stepped up, leveling it himself, two to two.

By this point the game was already thrilling enough, yet the real climax was still quietly waiting in the wings.

The match entered stoppage time, and almost everyone assumed it would probably end in a draw.

Yet, right at this critical juncture, Mahrez descended once more — in the ninety-somethingth minute, he scored his second of the match, three to two, Algeria completing a stunning turnaround!

The Algeria fans across the ground boiled over in that instant, victory seemingly within arm's reach, theirs for the taking.

However, the thing this sport never lacks is precisely the unexpected and the reversal.

At the very last instant of the match, Austria's Kalajdžić thundered in a goal too, three to three!

This was almost the last strike of the whole game; Austria forcibly, from the cliff's edge, wrenched a point back.

The final whistle blew, the score fixed at three to three, each side taking a point and shaking hands.

So, how should this match be judged?

First, it was undoubtedly a game belonging to attack and to courage.

Neither team shrank back for safety or played passively; instead they chose to let loose and trade blows with all their might, which is what created this feast of six flying goals.

Algeria fell behind twice, tenaciously leveled twice, and even completed a turnaround at the end, interpreting that refuse-to-lose grit to the fullest;

and their biggest hero was, without doubt, the brace-scoring Mahrez — stepping up again and again at the most crucial moments, which is exactly where a top star's most precious value lies.

Austria was equally admirable, stubbornly leveling at the very last second, not letting themselves go home empty-handed — that never-say-die fighting spirit deserves everyone's respect too.

We might probe one layer deeper: why did this game produce so many goals, and stage such a crazy stoppage time?

The logic behind it actually isn't complicated.

Both teams took a place in the next round extremely seriously, neither content to conservatively settle for a draw, so the moment they fell behind, they pushed up to attack without regard for anything.

But when you commit everything and gamble all, the line behind you naturally throws its gates wide open, and the opponent's space to counter opens up with it.

So a chain reaction of "you score one, I answer with one" forms, the game gets more and more open, and the goals pile up.

And by stoppage time, both sides' stamina is near its limit, focus most likely to scatter, and the back line's gaps most likely to be exposed at that moment — which is exactly why so many fate-deciding goals are born in a game's final moments.

Today's contest, you could say, played this inner logic of soccer out to the extreme.

Finally, let's weigh the true heft of this point.

This was the final round of the group, both teams fighting bloodily for one precious place to advance.

And the eventual draw meant utterly different things to the two: Algeria, on the strength of this crucial point, squeaked through, firmly grasping the ticket to the next round;

while Austria, though they fought to the very last moment and were noble in defeat, fell just that hair's breadth short in the end, missing out on going further.

The same three to three: on one side the relief and release of surviving disaster, on the other the rue and reluctance of falling short.

Soccer's cruelty and romance, staged side by side in the very same ninety minutes.

This is also exactly why a draw with no winner can be more unforgettable than many a lopsided victory.

What people pursue, walking into the stadium or keeping vigil before a screen, was never merely a result, but this very process of the heart skipping a beat, then finding a way out of a hopeless corner.

When the score is rewritten time and again, when someone still dares to draw their sword in stoppage time, what we see is, in fact, this sport's most authentic charm — it's forever full of the unknown, and forever refuses to tell you the answer until the final whistle.

Years from now, perhaps no one will remember this game's exact score, but that wrench and exhilaration of "leading, then pegged back; seemingly winning, then leveled" will remain in the heart of everyone who watched it.

That's Algeria three to three Austria — a goal-fest long, long hard to forget.

See you next match.