SAO PAULO — Steven Gerrard had to know the final whistle was coming, because more than 62,000 others inside Arena Corinthians were certain, the Uruguayans because they longed for it and the English because they dreaded it. He stood just inside the center circle and awaited the inevitable. Uruguay’s Fernando Muslera struck the goal kick, not delaying this time because he knew, too, and referee Velasco Carballo delivered what amounted to the very sound of failure.

Gerrard’s head dropped. He put his hands on his thighs and bent at the waist, holding this posture for only a beat. He was permitted to be alone with this terrible moment just long enough, before one of his opponents judged it the proper time to offer condolences. Eventually Gerrard managed a few strides, over the halfway line in the general direction of the England fan section. How he thought to lift his hands toward the customary soccer gesture of applauding the supporters — perhaps it was instinct, burned into his athlete’s soul after more than 100 appearances in an England jersey, and nearly 500 more with Liverpool FC.

Steven Gerrard

Eventually, he wound up in an embrace with Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, because how else could this game conclude? It was going to be like that one way or another. This was the other: Uruguay 2, England 1.

“Sorry,” Suarez said was his first word to Gerrard, his teammate at LFC when the soccer world is divided into clubs rather than countries. “Because he’s the best player I’ve played with. On the pitch, it’s an unlucky moment for him, and I don’t like when he’s down. I say, ‘Go on and forget this game,’ because he is one of the best.”

There was a time when that most assuredly was true, when Gerrard daringly rescued Liverpool from certain defeat and all but singlehandedly elevated the squad to the 2005 UEFA Champions League title, then repeated his miracle a year later in the FA Cup final. A decade later he has reinvented himself, more the first line of his team’s defense than a pirate pillaging the opponent’s goal. And in his two biggest games of the year, he felt the cruelty of sport in ways that seem much harsher when visited upon the aging.

In late April, with Liverpool just a few positive results from lifting a first-ever Premier League trophy, Gerrard, 34, slipped and fell on a simple advance of the ball just a short while before the halftime break. But the ball trickled directly to Chelsea’s Demba Ba, who grabbed it with his toe and raced in for what amounted to a game-winning goal. Liverpool’s hold on the title race never was regained.

And here Thursday afternoon at Arena Corinthians, it was deja vu all over again. England had reanimated its fading World Cup hopes with a Wayne Rooney goal in the 75th minute, drawing even with Uruguay, and the English looked the far more likely side to steal a late winner. Ten minutes later, though, the relative appeasement of a draw achingly close, Muslera let loose a goal kick that seemed routine, until it found Gerrard’s head and bounded backward — over England defender Phil Jagielka and directly to Suarez, who grabbed it with his toe and raced in for the game-winning goal.

“He’s a good player, and I know it because I watch every day in Liverpool,” defender Sebastian Coates, Suarez’s teammate for both club and country, told Sporting News. “Today he showed he’s one of the best players in the moment. He always has one chance more.”

England had controlled much of the game before Suarez struck with his first goal, a perfectly placed header off a chip from teammate Edinson Cavani, off a buildup that surged when Gerrard was beaten right at the midfield line for a 50/50 ball. And then England reasserted its ownership but never its authority. Rooney struck a point-blank chance directly into Muslera’s hands in the 52nd minute. England forward Daniel Sturridge misspent a couple of his own beautiful moves with a cross nestled gently near the keeper and a butter-soft shot of his own.

Then Sturridge pulled off a spin-o-rama on the right sideline, fed the ball ahead to right back Glen Johnson and watched as Johnson split three defenders and put the ball exactly on Rooney’s left instep. It was Rooney’s first World Cup goal in his third tournament for England. It appeared that would be enough to keep alive his team’s hopes of advancement. Now England will need a preposterous confluence of results from the three remaining Group D games to advance.

"We are more than disappointed, we're devastated,” England coach Roy Hodgson said afterward. “It was a goal we don't expect to concede. Long goal kicks with the type of players we have in the team, we deal with them. I thought we would go on possibly to win the game and certainly I didn't think we would lose the game at that point.”

Sports aren't always just, however. You play long enough, you don’t escape unscathed. But a star player in his mid-20s has a decade of opportunities to surmount whatever in-game tragedies develop. The athlete approaching the end, still relevant and capable and trying to steal one more moment of greatness, he might let a baseball slip through his legs and down the first base line at Shea Stadium, or drop a certain touchdown pass all but placed in his hands by Roger Staubach.

“Steve is a great player. He showed his entire career he’s the best midfielder,” Coates said. “It’s a pity that he makes a mistake like this.”

As sad as he was for his dear friend, Suarez also felt a powerful sense of vindication after what he felt to be unfair treatment by fans of other Premier League clubs and the media who cover them, harangues engendered by Suarez’s suspension over a racial abuse allegation and later his bizarre decision to bite Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic during the course of a game.

“Too many people in England laughed at me the last few years,” Suarez said, “and this is a very good time for me. And now I want to see the Internet and media, what they’re doing now.”

He might not want to look. Because the Internet is not adept at contrition. Instead of lauding Suarez’s moments of brilliance, those consumed with English soccer turned on Twitter to savaging his dear friend Gerrard. Stevie G might need another hug.