CHICKENPIE.Cape Verde drew with Spain on matchday one. They drew 2-2 with Uruguay, a two-time World Cup winner, on matchday two. They went into Friday's final group game against Saudi Arabia needing a result — any result — to keep their World Cup debut alive. The island nation of ten Atlantic specks and 525,000 inhabitants did not win. They drew 0-0. It was the most important goalless draw in football this decade.
Because Cape Verde's place in the round of 32 did not actually depend on them. It depended on Spain. The Blue Sharks needed the 2010 champions to do them a favour against Uruguay in the other Group H game, kicking off at the same time in Raleigh. At full-time in Houston, Cape Verde's players did what every Cape Verdean in the stadium, every Cape Verdean watching from Praia or Mindelo or anywhere on the ten volcanic islands they call home, was already doing: they huddled around a phone on the pitch. They watched Spain hold on. They waited for the final whistle at the other end of the country. When it came, the tears started.
There was a beautiful moment where they were all huddled around waiting on their phones, waiting for the full-time whistle to go. When it did, tears flowed on the pitch and in the stands as well. What a moment. The moment of the World Cup so far. — Rob Law, BBC Radio 5 Live commentator in Houston
The prize is a date with the defending champions. Argentina, the country that has won the World Cup three times and lifted the trophy most recently in Qatar 2022, await Cape Verde in the round of 32. The group of islands has a population smaller than the city of Bilbao. Their entire starting XI plays across eight different European leagues, none of them in the top five. Their head coach, Pedro Leitão, was a former Cape Verde international midfielder who took the job eighteen months ago and has since watched his team beat Ghana, draw with Egypt, draw with Spain, draw with Uruguay, and qualify from a group containing two former world champions. The round of 32 begins Tuesday. Cape Verde is in it.
Saudi Arabia are the team going home. Their three group games — a 1-0 loss to Uruguay, a 2-0 win over a rotated Spain, a 0-0 with Cape Verde — were not enough. Hervé Renard's side, who shocked Argentina in the 2022 group stage and bowed out to Poland in the round of 16, will not get to repeat either result. Spain top the group. Uruguay finish third and wait on other results to see if they sneak through as one of the eight best third-placed teams. Cape Verde, meanwhile, become the smallest nation ever to reach the knockout rounds of a men's World Cup — a record that may stand for a very long time.
The diaspora is the story underneath the story. Most of the Cape Verde squad was born or raised in Europe — Lisbon, Rotterdam, Marseille, Strasbourg — and they fly the flag of a country many of them had only visited on holiday before this tournament began. The roads of Praia were painted blue and white this week. The flag of Cape Verde — five horizontal stripes of blue, white, red, white, green with a circle of ten yellow stars — flew on balconies from Rotterdam to Boston. The ten stars are for the ten islands. There are ten islands on the pitch at NRG Stadium in the round of 32. The smallest flag in the tournament just booked its place against the loudest.
Cape Verde's first knockout World Cup match is on Tuesday or Wednesday, against Argentina, in a stadium the Blue Sharks would not have dared dream about six weeks ago. Win, and the small islands reach the quarter-finals. Lose, and the diaspora returns home with the best story the country has ever had on a football pitch. Either way, the phone call home tonight will not need a translation. The flag is going to the knockouts.
Daily Art Caricature by Chickenpie — World Cup 2026.
