Cape Verde pulled off the shock of the 2026 World Cup so far as they held European champions Spain to a battling goalless draw in their Group H opener in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Despite seeing plenty of possession in the first half, Luis De La Fuente’s team \u2013 who started with Lamine Yamal on the bench \u2013 were unable to break down a determined Cape Verde defence, as Ferran Torres hit the crossbar from close range.<\/p>\n
Veteran Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha produced a fine reaction save to deny Torres and then tipped away Aymeric Laporte\u2019s glancing header from a corner as the World Cup debutants got into half-time on level terms.<\/p>\n
Yamal \u2013 who had been out since April with a hamstring problem and missed the final weeks of Barcelona\u2019s LaLiga-winning campaign \u2013 was eventually sent on with 20 minutes left, but Spain could not find a way past Vozinha as the Blue Sharks held out for a famous result.<\/p>\n
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As Cape Verde were content to sit deep from kick-off, Spain dominated possession early on.<\/p>\n
Mikel Oyarzabal floated over a cross from the right, which Shamrock Rovers defender Roberto Lopes headed away as Pedri arrived at the back post.<\/p>\n
However, the Blue Sharks \u2013 who had qualified top of their qualifying group ahead of Cameroon \u2013 made it safely through the first hydration break.<\/p>\n
Spain looked to up the tempo again following the restart as Marc Cucurella \u2013 whose \u00a352million move to Real Madrid from Chelsea was confirmed earlier on Monday \u2013 sent a snapshot just over from the left side of the box.<\/p>\n
Cape Verde\u2019s lone frontman Dailon Livramento tried his luck with a speculative long-range effort over Unai Simon as the Spain keeper had wandered upfield, but the ball dropped well wide.<\/p>\n
Vozinha pushed a fierce strike from Pedri over the crossbar, but there was an offside flag against Cucurella for his initial header in the build-up.<\/p>\n
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Spain almost broke the deadlock five minutes before half-time when Torres crashed the ball against the bar from Cucurella\u2019s nod back through the six-yard box and 40-year-old Vozinha then acrobatically palmed Oyarzabal\u2019s follow-up header behind.<\/p>\n
Vozinha denied Torres again with a low save before tipping away Laporte\u2019s header from a corner as Cape Verde got themselves to half-time still on level terms.<\/p>\n
Spain continued to press following the restart, but again could not find a way to break down Cape Verde\u2019s resolute defensive block as Marcos Llorente and then Fabian Ruiz fired over.<\/p>\n
With 20 minutes left, Yamal replaced Gavi and Arsenal forward Mikel Merino was sent on for Ruiz.<\/p>\n
Yamal was soon on the front foot, darting forward before laying the ball off for Llorente, whose side-foot effort was straight at Vozinha.<\/p>\n
Dubliner Lopes threw himself in front of Oyarzabal to deflect the Spain forward\u2019s volley over before Cape Verde almost snatched a dramatic late winner when Diney Borges sent his header from a corner straight at Simon.<\/p>\n
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente accepted his side had not proven ruthless enough in front of goal.<\/p>\n
“We have generated enough scoring chances, but perhaps we have lacked finesse. Nevertheless, this team is reliable,” De la Fuente said in quotes reported by the Spanish Football Federation.<\/p>\n
“This match has taught us that the World Cup is a tournament with a lot of parity and very challenging. For us, nothing has changed. We have our feet on the ground. We know what needs to be improved”.<\/p>\n
Cape Verde are down at 67th in the FIFA rankings, but goalkeeper Vozinha maintains they were good value for a first World Cup point.<\/p>\n
“We knew we were playing against one of the best national teams in the world, but we also know our quality,” Vozinha said on quotes on the FIFA website.<\/p>\n
“We worked a lot for this big day. We knew it was going to be very difficult, but we are very happy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Verde pulled off the shock of the 2026 World Cup so far as they held European champions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-501268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}