Argentina Survive Cape Verde Scare, Reach World Cup Last 16
The reigning champions were pushed to the brink by the smallest nation ever to reach the knockout rounds before edging through in Miami.
Cape Verde arrived in Miami as the smallest nation ever to reach a World Cup knockout round. For 111 minutes on Friday they played like a team that belonged there, and it took an own goal, an exhausted 40-year-old goalkeeper on the other side and every ounce of Argentina's championship nerve to send them home.
Argentina won 3-2 after extra time, but the scoreline flatters the holders. Lionel Messi put them ahead in the 29th minute with his 20th career World Cup goal, a record, slipping behind the Cape Verde defence to meet a lofted Lisandro Martínez pass and hammering it past goalkeeper Vozinha. Twice the islanders drew level. Twice they silenced a pro-Argentina crowd in South Florida.
Deroy Duarte equalised in the 59th. When Martínez restored the lead in extra time, Sidny Lopes Cabral answered in the 103rd with the kind of curling finish that ends up on tournament montages. Argentina's winner, when it finally arrived in the 111th, was scrappy: Cristian Romero rose to a Messi corner and his header deflected in off Cape Verde defender Diney Borges, credited as an own goal.
Between Cape Verde and the greatest upset of the tournament stood Vozinha. The veteran made 10 saves, five of them from Messi, and for long stretches he looked unbeatable. ESPN's account of the night reads less like an upset averted than a rescue.
Cape Verde's run was the story of the group stage, and it did not stop being the story on Friday. An archipelago of roughly half a million people off the West African coast, playing in its first World Cup, had already held Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia to draws to reach the last 32, then took the world champions deep into extra time. FOX Sports called it the beauty of the World Cup distilled, and that is not hyperbole for a country that had never won a World Cup match before this summer.
For Argentina, the takeaway is more sobering than the result suggests. Messi is carrying an attack that could not put a debutant away until an extra-time deflection, and the defence that won the 2022 final looked its age against runners it did not expect. The live commentary logged wave after wave of Cape Verde pressure that better-rested legs might have punished.
Next comes Egypt, who reached the round of 16 by beating Australia on penalties earlier Friday, in Atlanta on Tuesday. Argentina got the win their status demands. Cape Verde got something that will outlast it: the night the smallest country at the World Cup made the biggest name in the game sweat.
