*Sub Lukaku Saves Belgium From Egypt’s Hands
By Sid Lowe, at Atlanta Stadium, and Jeff Reuter, at Seattle Stadium
They screamed in joy so much that it was like they had won the World Cup itself.
Such was the emotion on the faces of Cape Verde players as the final whistle sounded on Monday in their first ever World Cup.
And who were their opponents? Spain, of all teams, one of the favourites to lift the World Cup!
Wow, just wow. At 1.57pm Atlanta time, 3,291 miles from home, the final whistle went on Cape Verde’s first game in a World Cup finals tournament – and they had only gone and done it.
What they had done was madness: a tiny nation, a debutant, had held one of the favourites, the European champions, to a 0-0 draw.
Bubista, the coach who led them, had said he wanted the world to see who and what they are – and, boy, did they see.
Qualification, he had insisted, was more than football, it was music, it was culture, it was everything. So what was this?
This was wonderful. What a moment and what a noise greeted the moment when the impossible had become real.
An Atlantic archipelago of 600,000 people. A Shamrock Rovers centre back from Crumlin, Dublin, learning Creole and found on LinkedIn.
A 40-year-old goalkeeper from Portugal’s second division, another Josimar leaving his mark on the history of this competition and a million minds, left in tears at the end and to be talked about for generations.
All of them, each and every one. They had come to the US, faced Spain, and resisted them, their bodies on the line and their hearts on their sleeves.
Even the introduction of Lamine Yamal, the teenage icon cast as Spain’s saviour, couldn’t defeat them.
Cape Verde got a point from Atlanta but they got a whole lot more. They might have literally got more.
As this game entered the final, dramatic, tense minutes with the score at 0-0, it was they, not Spain, who actually had the best chances.
Amazingly, on 90 minutes Diney Borges leapt inside the Spain area, rising to meet a header – and his moment of immortality – only for Atletic Bilbao’s Spanish goalie Unai Simón to save.
Three minutes later Ryan Mendes had his opportunity, too. And Dani Olmo had to block from Kevin Pina, an incredible story on the edge of getting even more absurd.
But this will live for ever anyway, a draw of pure joy. And if those were huge moments, images that will be in the imagination a long time, so too was the astonishing block from Pico Lopes, diving in on 88 minutes to deny Olmo.
Lopes was born and raised in Ireland. His dad Carlos, a cruise ship chef whose boat docked in Dublin where he met Judy, was in the stands here with her and Pico’s two brothers.
His 98‑year‑old granddad, who still works the land, watched from Sao Nicolao. His wife’s family had come by campervan. How proud they must feel, how incredible his story is.
It’s been told, but it still blows your mind, and it had another chapter written here. A former mortgage adviser, bored with the business, a part-time amateur who left Bohemians for Shamrock Rovers, he was contacted on LinkedIn and ignored the first message – it was in a language he doesn’t understand and he assumed it was spam. Now he had made history.
Behind him, the 40-year-old Josimar José Évora Dias, “Vozinha”, had too. They all had, what heroes they have become: a starting XI that plays in eight different leagues, 26 men from outside the elite.
Nothing does stories like football, like the World Cup.
How The Match Went
Spain had 24 shots and could not find a way through, but this wasn’t a fluke, far from it. Bubista’s players had worked for it, deserved it from the very start when that countdown to kick off came and – one minute and six seconds later than scheduled – Dailon Livramento got the country’s first touch at a World Cup finals.
They had been told that this wasn’t their place. Oh, but it is. And so it began, an act of rebellion and resistance. 90 long minutes with a huge reward waiting at the end.
Bubista has said his team would have the courage to attack but also that they would have to defend well: that was the priority here, and they did so extremely well.
It took 14 minutes for Pedri to have Spain’s first shot, then Pau Cubarsi struck a shot wide and that was pretty much that.
At the other end Mendes lifted over Gavi and saw his shot blocked by Marc Cucurella, Livramento shot from halfway, and Jovane Cabral curled wide.
Spain did improve and as the half came towards a close the chances appeared, which was when Vozinha did too. The first of a series of saves came from Mikel Oyarzabal’s header after Ferran Torres hit the bar.
He stopped from Torres too, and from an Aymeric Laporte header. And although Spain’s shot count rose at the start of the second half, eventually reaching 27, it just wasn’t happening. Instead, history was.
Yamal Comes On In Minute 70
Time was getting on, and on, and on. And, to the surprise of everyone, it took until 70 minutes for Lamine Yamal to be introduced, his appearance changing the mood but not history. Cape Verde did that, music for the world to hear.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Cape Verde players celebrating the draw.
Lukaku Saves Belgium From Egypt’s Hands
For just over half of Egypt’s opening match against Belgium, it looked as though the Pharaohs had done enough for a famous first World Cup win.
And then Rudi Garcia went to his bench and brought on the player Belgium have long relied on in thorny situations.
“Frankly, when you are the opponent and you see Romelu Lukaku entering the field, your confidence goes down and your anxiety increases,” Garcia said after the draw.
While Lukaku himself did not score, his threat drew two defenders on to his first run into the box, which resulted in an equalising own goal to salvage a point from a closely fought contest.
Group G hotted up in earnest with presumptive frontrunners Belgium and Egypt opening their World Cup campaigns with a credible draw.
A crowd of 66,775 watched on under the intense sun of the early North American summer, in a contest which warranted the contentious cooling breaks that have been universally adopted for this tournament.
The group’s headline clash was slated as a noon affair under a heat advisory in Seattle, with on-field temperatures of 30C (86F) and high, hazy clouds at kick-off.
There was scarcely an empty seat to be found, forming a sea of red and white owing to the teams’ similar colours.
Both sides tested the tolerance of the referee, Ramon Abatti, for contact and exchanged a pair of early yellow cards.
Egypt Scores In Minute 19
As the match entered the 19th minute, Egypt found a breakthrough. A quick restart caught Belgium backpedalling into position as Egypt approached the final third.
Some nifty right-sided buildup found Mohamed Salah, where he turned to his left and assessed.
Playing on his 34th birthday, Salah fizzed a pass to his left where Emam Ashour collected and cut toward the top of the D.
The midfielder fired a shot underneath Thomas Meunier’s dangling leg and beyond a diving Thibaut Courtois, who had overcommitted to his left and was unable to stretch far enough to his right.
It was a timely first international goal for the Al-Ahly midfielder on his 30th appearance.
The stands at Seattle Stadium physically rocked during the raucous celebration, a hallmark of the venue when it hosts American and association football alike (as well as Taylor Swift concerts).
Belgium Struggle To Come Back
Belgium struggled to maximise their width for large portions of the first half.
Egypt were proactive when closing down Jérémy Doku, often doubling up on the winger whenever the ball went in his direction.
On the opposite flank, Leandro Trossard often seemed in two minds about what to do in possession, having the ball taken off of him three times in the opening half-hour.
Belgium Changes Tactics
After Ashour’s opener, Doku switched to the right where Egypt had fewer numbers. As first-half stoppage time loomed, passes and shots increased in desperation.
A long-range effort from Kevin De Bruyne failed to enter the box, instead smacking the striker Charles De Ketelaere on the backside.
Doku tried a volley but shanked it well above the bar. Egypt nearly found a second with the half’s final action, but the last in a series of corners drifted above the scrum and tamely into open terrain.
As Belgium shot more speculatively, Egypt comported themselves with greater aspiration than sitting in a bunker.
The Pharaohs broke on the counter when able but otherwise were content to have possession in midfield with their defence well stationed behind.
Lukaku Comes On
At last, in the 66th minute, Garcia put his team’s fate at Lukaku’s feet. It proved savvy, as a quick break by Meunier into the box for a close-range cross found Lukaku sliding between a pair of defenders in close proximity to the goalkeeper, Mostafa Shobeir.
The ball went beyond Lukaku’s leg but caught the inside of Mohamed Hany’s boot and rolled into Egypt’s net, levelling the game just before the second-half drinks break.
The 33-year-old Lukaku only logged 40 minutes in Serie A for Napoli this season, raising concerns that Belgium’s record scorer would not be ready for this World Cup. Instead, it has perhaps made a role off the bench more palatable for the veteran striker.
“We’re going far [this summer] with Romelu, so we have to go easy on him,” Garcia said. “The goal is to get as far as possible in this World Cup with a Romelu who doesn’t get hurt. I think that’s the first objective. And then if he plays this role of super sub and that every time he hits a goal, frankly, it’s going to be great.”
