CPV draw it! I’d love to see this team get there way into the knockout round.
Wow!!!
Yes Cape V!
As someone who’s always rooting for the underdog in games like this, I’m mightily impressed by Cape Verde. They absolutely deserved this, and they didn’t even play ugly and had their own offensive situations.
Cape Verde looked like they were playing a man short the whole second half. Was a defensive effort.
Cape Verdean GK crying, and well he should. Man of the Match.
Goooood…
Does this more-lenient format (3 out of 4 teams advance instead of just 2) give teams more incentive to draw instead of going for the win? (Not referring to Cape Verde, but in general)
He’s already 40, just a few days younger than Manuel Neuer, but I bet he’ll get a much better contract at his club (currently second Portuguese league) or even more probable, at another club next season. He was really fantastic today.
Not quite.
There are 12 groups. Top 2 advance to the round of 32. Then the 8 best 3rd-place finishers also advance.
How the top 8 3rd-place finishers will be determined, I don’t know.
Pts, then GD.
Spain had opportunities, although not as many as they should be able to create. Dropping points does increase the chance of big teams meeting each other next round.
According to The Athletic (probably paywalled) this is the first time a head coach has been fired after the first game.
Just three managers have ever been fired during a World Cup before, with all of them dismissed in the space of a few days at the 1998 edition
Sabri Lamouchi would be the first to be fired after one game
Managers leaving during a World Cup
Manager Team World Cup Games in Carlos Alberto Parreira Saudi Arabia 1998 2 Cha Bum-kun South Korea 1998 2 Henryk Kasperczak Tunisia 1998 2
Spain haven’t got the greatest record in their opening game in recent World Cups.
2010: 0-1 vs Switzerland
2014: 1-5 vs Netherlands
2018: 3-3 vs Portugal
2022: 7-0 vs Costa Rica
2018: 0-0 vs Cape Verde
Though their GD is +2 I suppose.
The teams that win it peak late not early. In 2022 Spain were beaten on penalties by Morocco in the first knock out round. And they won the whole thing in 2010.
According to FotMob, the match was 2.3 xG to 0.3 xG. It’s not even that they didn’t create chances, they just didn’t finish. Plus their best attacking threats sat most of the game. Not ideal from their standpoint, but IMO doesn’t indicate serious problems yet.
Yeah, I hope USA remembers this. Their big win was nothing in the long-term view.
Egypt takes the lead over Belgium! Maybe this is opposite day!
The Cape Verde keeper shut out Spain. I’m guessing he won’t have to pay for a lot of grogue in the future. Yaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh.
This was NOT a high priority day for me, but I am massively enjoying the matches.
I’m so lucky to be a teacher. Our final day of the year was June 10. Boom, june 11 and we are underway.
One bonus of being a teacher.
Cape Verde. Population: 525,000.
That’s the usual quality of my predictometer. Don’t ask why I don’t gamble or bet…
Always curious to see if the small countries are like a bunch of people given eligibility because their grandmother went on vacation there once, but looks like Cape Verde’s team is significantly native born. Also apparently there’s a huge diaspora in Rotterdam.