Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.
Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha described their World Cup draw with Spain as a “dream come true”, having kept the European champions at bay with an astonishing display.
Monday’s game in Atlanta was expected to be one of the most one-sided at the tournament, with Spain ranked second in the world and Cape Verde down in 67th.
The Opta supercomputer gave Spain – the tournament favourites – an 87.2% chance of victory, with World Cup debutants Cape Verde only assigned an 8.1% probability of earning a draw.
But a resolute defensive showing from the Crioulos ensured Luis de la Fuente’s team were held to a 0-0 stalemate, even after Lamine Yamal made his return from injury as a 71st-minute substitute.
Spain had 27 shots, their joint-most on record in a World Cup match without scoring (since 1966), along with their 27 attempts against Paraguay in another 0-0 draw in 1998.
Vozinha played a key role as he made seven saves, becoming just the second goalkeeper aged 40+ to make that many in a World Cup game since records began in 1966 – Pat Jennings made 10 for Northern Ireland against Brazil in 1986, on his 41st birthday.
Speaking to Fox, Vozinha – who plays his club football in Portugal’s second tier with GD Chaves – said: “I worked hard all my life for this, for this moment, for this dream.
“A lot of generations in the past were dreaming of this, they didn’t achieve it, many ex-players from our national team… and now the dream has come true.”
After receiving the Player of the Match award, he added: “I cried because I grew up with my grandparents. Unfortunately, they were not here. They died a few years before. They were everything to me.
“And also, because of my mum. She didn’t manage to be here because of the visa. Because of the money you have to pay for the visa, we didn’t manage on time. I would have liked her to be here.
“Our best weapon is our unity. Regardless of the player who arrives today, or the player who is 10 or 15 years old, the way we treat our family is our greatest strength.
“Everyone thought that we came here just to enjoy the World Cup, but no, we know that we face teams that we will always respect, because this is our first time, but we are here to compete, and we are here to fight for our country.”
Aged 40 years and 12 days, Vozinha is the oldest player to make an appearance in a nation’s debut World Cup game, breaking Eloy Room’s record set on Sunday for Curacao (37 years, 182 days). Only Egypt’s Essam El Hadary (45 years, 161 days) was older when making his World Cup debut.
For Spain, meanwhile, the result represented an embarrassing start to a tournament where they are expected to go far, but De la Fuente is not panicking just yet.
“This [Spain] team is reliable, whatever happens,” de la Fuente said. “We haven’t lost in 32 matches. We’ll be better in the next game, for sure.
“When you lack freshness, this can happen. It’s something to improve, nothing else. We’ll stay on our path, which has taken us this far.
“In this World Cup, there is extreme equality and difficulty. This team was clearly inferior to us, but they did the things they had to do well.
“We’re calm. This is a long tournament, and in our heads, we’ve still got seven games left.”
La Roja’s second Group H game pits them against Saudi Arabia on Sunday, while Cape Verde face Uruguay on the same day with all four teams now level on one point.
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