With Paraguay and Peru also performing above expectations, no side won their first two games, meaning every game in the group stage mattered.
Young, experimental, expletive-ridden, unafraid to discuss and stage subject matter rarely, if ever aired on stage (oral sex, anal sex, rape, even defecation in the case of Anthony Neilson's 1997 play The Censor).
That was a staging matter for Michael Bogdanov, a young director who had established his reputation with imaginative versions of classic fables.
Having a stage style matters, he and the singer Nick Thorburn agreed.
He eventually became disillusioned with theatre, he has said, but the new show is "a test to see if the stage still matters to me".
The triptych video screen at the back of the stage makes matters worse, with a slow succession of images (by Mike Daly) of war, explosions and fire that feel didactic rather than integral.
Every seat gives a perfect view of the stage; the matters of securing good food and refreshment without trouble; depositing one's hat and coat have been arranged so that nothing impairs the visitor's enjoyment of the opera.
Every day spent with late stage cancer matters — that's why it's so important to get treatments right the first time.
