{"id":509121,"date":"2026-07-04T07:01:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T07:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/509121\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T07:01:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T07:01:22","slug":"argentina-narrowly-survive-world-cup-scare-against-valiant-cape-verde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/509121\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina narrowly survive World Cup scare against valiant Cape Verde"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lionel Messi<\/a> and Argentina beat Cape Verde 3-2 on Saturday, advancing to the World Cup Round of 16 in a thrilling match in which the tiny island nation<\/a> challenged the reigning champion until the final minutes of extra time.<\/p>\n

The go-ahead score for Argentina was credited as an own-goal after Cristian Romero’s header deflected off Cape Verde’s Diney Borges in the 111th minute. <\/p>\n

Messi’s sensational goal as Cape Verde nearly pull off biggest World Cup upset – watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

Messi scored early in regulation, his record-extending 20th career World Cup goal. Lisandro Martinez scored in the 103rd to put Argentina ahead 2-1.<\/p>\n

Sidny Lopes Cabral and Deroy Duarte scored for Cape Verde \u2014 both equalisers that stunned the pro-Argentina crowd in South Florida.<\/p>\n

Argentina advanced to face Egypt, which beat Australia in a penalty shootout<\/a> earlier today, in Atlanta on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Cape Verde\u2019s memorable World Cup debut had been a stunning run that few outside the tiny island nation off the western coast of Africa could have predicted. Behind the stellar play of 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, Cape Verde became the smallest country to reach the knockout round, securing surprising draws against Spain<\/a> and Uruguay and another against Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\"Argentina's<\/p>\n

Argentina’s Lionel Messi (10) scores their first goal against Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha (1) during the World Cup round of 32 match between Argentina and Cape Verde (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Vozinha had 10 saves against Argentina, including five against Messi.<\/p>\n

Messi added another brilliant goal<\/a> to his resume, sneaking behind the Cape Verde defence on a well-timed run as Martinez lofted a pass toward him, taking a quick touch and hammering a finish into the roof of the net past goalkeeper Vozinha for a 1-0 lead in the 29th minute.<\/p>\n

The Argentina captain has seven goals in this tournament \u2014 one more than France\u2019s Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 in the Golden Boot race as the top scorer in this year\u2019s World Cup \u2014 and extended his World Cup record, moving two goals ahead of Mbapp\u00e9 on the all-time list. He has 12 goals during his record eight-match scoring streak.<\/p>\n

Watch all matches at the World Cup with an event pass on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi and Argentina beat Cape Verde 3-2 on Saturday, advancing to the World Cup Round of 16…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2966,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-509121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}