{"id":41029,"date":"2026-06-15T21:33:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/41029\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T21:33:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:33:25","slug":"cape-verde-stuns-spain-with-a-surprising-0-0-draw-in-the-countrys-world-cup-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/41029\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Verde stuns Spain with a surprising 0-0 draw in the country’s World Cup debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 So much for a supersized World Cup<\/a> diluting the quality of soccer\u2019s biggest tournament.<\/p>\n

Tiny Cape Verde, making its debut at the World Cup<\/a>, pulled off a stunning upset to shut out heavily favored Spain in a 0-0 draw on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means everything for our country,\u201d said Cape Verde coach Pedro Leit\u00e3o Brito. \u201cWe have always said that we wanted everybody to see our country, our team and we have shown organization and braveness and this is proof of what our country is about \u2014 resilience and to try to overcome hardships.\u201d <\/p>\n

European champion Spain is one of the favorites to win the tournament and was -1200 to beat Cape Verde in its opening game. But it could not find a way past a 40-year-old goalkeeper and a stubborn defense that had an answer to everything Spain\u2019s superstars threw at them.<\/p>\n

Not even sensational teenager Lamine Yamal<\/a>, who came in off the bench in the second half, could turn a game that ended with wild and emotional celebrations inside the stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cA dream\u201d was how Cape Verde defender Steven Moreira described it. <\/p>\n

Veteran goalkeeper Vozinha broke down in tears after the final whistle following his impressive performance to keep Spain at bay.<\/p>\n

He was the player of the match, pulling off a string of saves at the end of the first half to deny Ferran Torres, Pedri and Aymeric Laporte.<\/p>\n

The closest Spain came to finding a breakthrough was when Torres struck the bar shortly before halftime. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have won today\u2019s match with everything that happened, with all the favorable situations we created, but we lacked freshness and a clinical edge,\u201d said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who had warned before the match that Cape Verde could be one of the surprise teams of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Spain could have been the victim of an even bigger upset when Diney Borges had a late chance to win the game, but saw his header saved by Spain keeper Unai Simon. <\/p>\n

Add Cape Verde to Cameroon, Senegal and Saudi Arabia on the list of teams that have pulled off shocking results against soccer\u2019s giants in the World Cup. <\/p>\n

Cameroon beat defending champion Argentina in 1990 and Senegal beat defending champion France in 2002. Four years ago Saudi Arabia triumphed against Lionel Messi\u2019s Argentina<\/a>, which eventually went on to win the tournament in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Cape Verde didn\u2019t win, but its performance rebuked some of the criticisms that the expansion of the World Cup<\/a> from 32 teams to 48 would weaken the tournament.<\/p>\n

The group of islands have about 4,000 square meters (about 2.5 miles) of landmass and approximately half a million inhabitants, making Cape Verde the third-smallest nation by population to qualify for the World Cup. And even against a Spain team that is filled with superstar players, Cape Verde proved its worth on soccer\u2019s biggest stage. <\/p>\n

Despite the majority of the 67,640 crowd inside Atlanta Stadium appearing to be Spain fans, it was the Cape Verde supporters that cheered loudest. They continued their celebrations after the final whistle, singing and dancing in the concourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us, we are happy because we work a lot to be here. We deserve to be here,\u201d said Vozinha. <\/p>\n

The 2010 champion Spain is aiming to win the World Cup for a second time and is coming into the tournament after winning the Euros in 2024. But a disappointing start echoes its performances in recent World Cups when it has failed to advance beyond the round of 16 in each of the last three editions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat doubts do you think my team is going to have? Zero doubts,\u201d said De la Fuente. \u201cWe know how difficult this competition is. The idea we need to follow is what took us here and what made us European champions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spain plays Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Cape Verde faces Uruguay.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

James Robson is at https:\/\/x.com\/jamesalanrobson<\/a><\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP World Cup: https:\/\/apnews.com\/fifa-world-cup<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 So much for a supersized World Cup diluting the quality of soccer\u2019s biggest tournament. Tiny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14717,2266,19094,934,3358,19186,19188,13053,332,664,19189,1743,17,6551,396,19187,18998,5842],"class_list":["post-41029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-aymeric-laporte","tag-cape-verde","tag-cape-verde-national-soccer-team","tag-ferran-torres","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-ga-state-wire","tag-georgia","tag-james-robson","tag-lionel-messi","tag-pedri","tag-pedro-leito-brito","tag-soccer","tag-spain","tag-spain-national-soccer-team","tag-sports","tag-sports-africa","tag-steven-moreira","tag-unai-simon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}