Cape Verdeans are showered with praise for their fight against the champions: ‘Messi avoided embarrassment…’

The most dramatic game was described by the German Bild, which said without hesitation: “Messi avoided a mega-blame”. In the text, they emphasized that “the soccer dwarf forced the world champion to do everything” and that Argentina had to play to the limit against the brave debutant. Cape Verde, a small island country with about half a million inhabitants, took the current champions to overtime, which was sensational in itself.

The British Guardian called the game “a thriller in overtime”. In their report, Cape Verde is not presented as a lovable outsider, but as an organized, brave and proud national team that made the current world champion wait until the last minutes. The English emphasized that the game, which on paper should have been a routine job for Messi and company, turned into an evening in which the debutant became a global story.

Sky Sport put special emphasis on the very end of extra time, describing it as a period in which “Argentina hung on until the very end”. After Cristian Romero with the helpć Diney Borges scored for 3-2 in the 111th minute, and it seemed that the resistance was broken. However, the “Sharks” did not give up and created two great opportunities in the last minutes. First, Cabral forced Emiliano Martinez into a great save from a free kick, and not long after, Dailon Livramento missed the same opportunity from close range. After the whistle, the Argentinian players collapsed on the pitch from exhaustion and relief, which was the best testimony of how much trouble the Greenland Islands were giving them.