What an all-timer this round of 32 is shaping up to be. Every day delivers some ludicrous plot twist the likes of which no one could have seen coming before. Apparently we’re doing cricket now? That’s good news for Australia, who face off against Egypt in the day’s early game.
After that, the sort of match that seems all the more dramatically posed given all the drama of the last few days. Cabo Verde have already done it once. Defying the European and world champions in one tournament, they couldn’t. Could they?
Can Cabo Verde stun a contender twice?
Arguably the highlight of the World Cup so far and certainly the best 0-0 draw in many a year, Cabo Verde’s stout denial of Spain felt like a once in a generation result, a game you could repeat 1,000 times over and never see Vozinha so spectacular, Diney Borges and Pico Lopes so organised. And there is no denying that this game is a rare joy, just not so rare that it might never happen again. Yes, I’m telling you there’s a chance for Cabo Verde do something against Argentina.
The Spain result was simultaneously both an almighty shock and perhaps more frequent than you might expect. At the final whistle the European champions had had 27 shots to Cabo Verde’s six, Opta judging the value of the Spanish efforts at 2.11 expected goals. That is a lot, enough to very usually win you a match when the other team puts up 0.24 xG on your goal. Indeed, the Futi app, whose final xG totals were slightly different, calculates that Spain would win this game 87% of the time. That feels like an awful lot and that’s because it is. But events with a 13% probability of happening happen all the time.
And if they can happen once, they can happen again, right? Well yes, of course, but going into this game it might be worth tempering your expectations accordingly based on some facts that are worth reaffirming. As a very obvious starter, if you reran this game with Spain’s red shirts switched to Argentina’s blue and white and everything else were to go exactly the same way, then Cabo Verde’s reward would not be the point that set them on course for a brilliant unbeaten group stage campaign. It would be to go again for another half hour, one extra substitute hardly enough to ease the mental and physical strain of holding out for so long.
CBS Sports
It is also the case that Cabo Verde won’t be playing Spain in Argentina shirts. They will be facing Argentina in Argentina shirts, which means finding some way of quelling both Lionel Messi and his running mates Lautaro Martinez and Julian Alvarez. The advantage the African side had on their World Cup bow is that injuries kept Nico Williams and, for the most part, Lamine Yamal out of the XI. Without their explosive and creative wingers Spain lacked both the targets for line-breaking passes and the players most able to play them through the Cabo Verde backline. For La Furia Roja only Aymeric Laporte and Rodri played a single pass that broke the defensive line.
Lionel Messi cuts these defenses apart as a matter of course. The guile of Argentina is probably harder to resist for 90 minutes than the steady examination of Spain. Here’s the thing though. There are ways that Cabo Verde might produce yet more history beyond riding Vozinha’s hot hands. They were by far the superior team against Saudi Arabia too without quite finding the breakthrough. Against Uruguay this team proved they could have a real good go and cause issues for good opposition on the counter. You could see how Cabo Verde might get more openings on the break against Argentina than Spain, whose domination of possession means they are always attacking with their rest defense in position. It only takes one breakaway to set the stage for something crazy happening.
It is natural to view these representatives of islands with a population of half a million and the broader diaspora as the ultimate underdogs and there is a degree of truth to it. These are, however, players drawn from teams in Turkey, Portugal, the USA and even Spain. They are not contest winners. Well, at least the only contest they won is a very competitive won to qualify for the World Cup ahead of continental superpower Cameroon. There’s a chance that Cabo Verde have one more miracle in them.
Australia’s Lucas Herrington could catch the eye
Who knows how much more of an impact Australia might make on the 2026 World Cup — they are only slight underdogs to advance against Egypt — but already 2030 is looking bright for them. We’ve previously discussed the attacking prospects coming out of the Championship — Nestory Irankunda and Mohamed Toure — but it would appear that the pipeline of bright young things does not only go to the final third of the pitch. In the otherwise drab affair that was Australia 0, Paraguay 0, an 18-year-old who plays his club football in Major League Soccer with Colorado Rapids shone brightly.
You could see why Lucas Herrington has already been scouted by both Barcelona and Liverpool, the latter of whom are viewed as serious contenders if the youngster moves this summer, according to CBS Sports sources. They are not the only Premier League side who were watching during his debut against Paraguay. You suspect they liked what they saw.
He looked big, 6’3″ to be precise, passed the ball precisely and looked strong for his age. Never was that more apparent than when a Paraguayan forward took too heavy a touch and went hurtling over Herrington as Australia’s left-sided defender got to the ball first. You could see why his teammate Harry Souttar might be inclined to drop the legendary “Rolls Royce” label on Herrington. “I’ll take that,” joked the man himself.
Given that you and I aren’t training with the Socceroos on a daily basis, we might want to see how Herrington fares against a better class of opposition before comparing him to any other automotives. A Mohamed Salah, for instance. Or an Omar Marmoush. Aaah, well that’s convenient.
Is Munoz Colombia’s not-so-secret weapon?
Three games through the World Cup, Colombia are learning a lesson that many a European club side has in recent years. It is very risky business indeed putting too much store in hefty scoring returns for one of Portugal’s big three. This season Luis Suarez followed in the footsteps of Viktor Gyokeres, Darwin Nunez and Jackson Martinez, smashing in 28 goals for Sporting to win the Bola de Prata. The hope must have been that the 28-year-old could be the man to fill the hole in the attack that has emerged post Falcao, to turn in the chances that Luis Diaz and James Rodriguez provided.
So far, not so much. Suarez got his shots up against Portugal, four of them in a 30-minute cameo after Jhon Cordoba had done yeoman’s work, but he had to settle for a role off the bench precisely because he had not been able to get himself into shooting spots as DR Congo and Uzbekistan looked to hold firm. In those games Suarez got one shot.
That’s a real worry when you come up against Ghana, who are going to have two or more bodies around the center forward at all times. If Harry Kane found himself driven to distraction, then maybe this is not a game for Cordoba, Suarez or any other natural striker. Often a low block as organised as Ghana’s is not broken by the players they key on eventually getting an opening but by those who attack a little later in the move. Fortunately for Colombia they have someone who is very good at that.
In Crystal Palace’s wing-back system, Daniel Munoz occasionally functions as a one-man flank, barrelling from his defensive duties into the final third. Those skills have translated nicely to the World Cup, where Colombia have tended to use a playmaker like James Rodriguez or Juan Quintero on the right. As they move infield, space opens up for Munoz, and he flies into it, typified in the late winner against DR Congo.
FIFA
It is not entirely clear that Quintero’s pass above is aimed for his right back rather than Cordoba, whose letting the ball run might just have been because he couldn’t get it under his control. That it is still hard to know exactly how much of this was organic as opposed to pre-planned is precisely the point, though. If you’re going to smash through Ghana’s brick wall, you’re going to need to hit it in unexpected places. In Munoz, Colombia have the ideal weapon for this.
