Leaving aside the football itself - and what a gripping struggle last night's Germany -v- Algeria game was - the World Cup continues to provide peerless entertainment off the field.
Trying to explain how an Italian defender ended up with teeth marks in his shoulder, Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez claimed, "After the impact . . . I lost my balance, making my body unstable and falling on top of my opponent . . . At that moment I hit my face against the player leaving a small bruise on my cheek and a strong pain in my teeth".
This reminds me rather of the captain of the cruise liner Costa Concordia who, it will be recalled, left his sinking ship by accident when he tripped and fell into the lifeboat.
So far, so implausible. But fervent were the denials from Uruguayan people and press. It was an Italian plot. It was an English plot. It was a European plot. Suarez was innocent.
Except that it now turns out that he wasn't. Writing on Twitter, Suarez said. "I have had the opportunity to regain my calm and reflect on the reality of what occurred . . . the truth is my colleague Giorgio Chiellini suffered the physical result of a bite in the collision he suffered with me. For this I deeply regret what occurred, apologise to Giorgio Chiellini and the entire football family and I vow to the public there will never be another incident like it".
So Suarez did bite Chiellini. Certainly this is what the press is now reporting, although - once a lawyer, always a lawyer - read closely the statement looks more like an acknowledgment of the bite together with the claim that it was an accident. Chiellini did "suffer the physical result of a bite", even if Suarez didn't mean to do it.
Still, everyone seems to think it is an admission, so perhaps that's what it is.
Suarez is still appealing the four-month ban FIFA handed out. If FIFA think his original denial was a lie, might they not be tempted to increase the ban rather than reduce it?
In Brazil the entertainment goes on and on.
