Cape Verde have held European champions Spain to a goalless draw in one of the most shocking results in World Cup history.
With a population of around 550,000 people, Cape Verde is the third-smallest country ever to reach the men’s World Cup finals.
But in their first match at the tournament, they held the 2010 champions to a 0-0 draw, thanks in no small part to a heroic performance by their 40-year-old goalkeeper, Vozinha.
Pol Ballus has been hearing from Cape Verde’s Steven Moreira. Here’s what the defender had to say about his side’s famous result.
“The vibes were good today. There was no pressure, we just played freely and then our goalkeeper had a crazy game.”
And on the performance of the 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha:
He is a big legend. He’s been in the national team for a long time. I am very proud of him. We joked a lot about him between us, but now doing this performance in a stage like this — being 40 years old, age is not important!”
With Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams not fit to start today’s game for Spain, there were worries about who would step up in their absence.
The answer was that, despite playing the lowest-ranked team in the group, no one would step up in their absence.
Ferran Torres missed all four of his shots — the best of them worth 0.53 xG — and was withdrawn as Spain were chasing a goal with 10 minutes left.
His replacement, Dani Olmo, wasn’t able to affect the game in the closing stages.
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