Cabo Verde held Spain in a seismic shock
The three other matches also ended all square
Cabo Verde penned an A-grade upset in A-Town. The tiny islanders and FIFA World Cup™ debutants held title favourites Spain. In a testament to its magnitude, the Blue Sharks’ hero, 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, began the game with 46,000 followers on Instagram and finished the day with five million. Elsewhere, Egypt, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia also managed unforeseen stalemates against Belgium, IR Iran and Uruguay. FIFA recaps an exhilarating Matchday 5.
Nobody gave Cabo Verde a shot. One of the smallest nations – in terms of both land mass and population – to ever reach the World Cup were debuting against the title favourites. It was consensually a question of not if Spain would win, but by how many goals. Ultimately the net didn’t ripple once, a herculean defensive performance and some superb saves from 40-year-old Vozinha secured Bubista’s boys a sport-shaking point. The one bright spark for Luis de la Fuente’s side was Lamine Yamal, who rose from the bench in the 71st minute and electrified. The 18-year-old genius could not, however, deny of the greatest days in Cape Verdean history.
The sides drew. The neutral spectators won. An end-to-end thriller included Emam Ashour arrowing an excellent opener into the bottom corner and pressure from Romelu Lukaku, who’d only been on the field moments, forcing an equaliser. The remarkable reflexes of Thibaut Courtois and Mostafa Shoubir, and the upright exasperating Kevin De Bruyne from a free-kick, prevented additional goals.
If Mohammed Alowais was outstanding as Saudi Arabia stupefied Argentina in their Qatar 2022 curtain-raiser, he was arguably even better today. After Abdulelah Alamri reacted to a rebound to fire the Green Falcons ahead, the goalkeeper repelled everything Uruguay threw at him. That was until the 80th minute, when Maxi Araujo snatched the Celeste a share of the spoils to leave the section engrossingly poised.
Chris Wood meshed muscle and magic to set up Elijah Just’s early opener, before Ramin Rezaeian levelled. Just’s second, following some glorious interchange, restored New Zealand’s advantage, only for Mohammad Mohebbi’s header hit back again. The full-time whistle was met with grand applause from both sets of supporters. They knew they’d witnessed a spectacle.
Mohamed Salah became the fourth man this century to register a World Cup assist on his birthday. The Egypt No7 emulated Italy’s Luigi Di Biagio (2002), Patrick Vieira of France and Ola Toivonen of Sweden.
Gavi became only the sixth player to appear in his second World Cup before the age of 22 after Pele, Norman Whiteside, Rigobert Song, Samuel Eto’o and Salomon Olembe. Another Spanish youngster, Lamine Yamal, completed more dribbles than any other player in Spain-Cabo Verde despite only being introduced in the 71st minute.
There was only one corner in the first 36 minutes of Saudi Arabia-Uruguay, but 17 in the remainder of the game. The eighteen overall is comfortably the most in a World Cup 2026 match.
Los Charrúas attempted 22 shots in the second period – the most in one half a World Cup game since East Germany’s assault on the Chile goal in 1974.
After losing their first three World Cup games, conceding 12 goals in the process, New Zealand have now drawn four successive matches in the competition. They were sizeable underdogs in each one, against Slovakia, Italy, Paraguay and Iran.
Four World Cups draws transpired on the same day for the first time in 68 years. England 2-2 Austria, Paraguay 3-3 Yugoslavia, Sweden 0-0 Wales and West Germany 2-2 Northern Ireland were among eight results on 15 June 1958.
Tuesday 16 June (all times local) 15:00 (Group I) 18:00 (Group I) 20:00 (Group J) 21:00 (Group J)
Sources: FIFA Official
