This was the moment when Gianni Infantino, the grubby little cash slag who runs FIFA, could have made himself a noble and even admirable human being in the eyes of a world that absolutely knows he would lick an alley clean for 10 bucks. And of course, he passed on it because he checked his Venmo and nothing new was in the queue.
All he had to do was announce that Cape Verde’s 0-0 draw with Spain (yeah, you read that right) was actually a win, and the Tubaroes Azuis (a cool name on its face) would be awarded the three points that would have come with a victory. Because it was. An enormous victory. Bigger in its way than the Knicks winning the NBA title. In fact, something far closer to your local community college’s team winning the NBA title.
Instead, and the standings continue to prove this no matter how many times we refresh the page, all they got was the traditional one point for not losing their nation’s first ever World Cup match, which came against one of the favorites to win the whole thing. That’s a miscarriage of justice of the first magnitude, and Infantino is still, well, you know.
While it is generally agreed that Netherlands-Japan had been the best match so far in this World Cup, this was infinitely more satisfying for everyone in the world who didn’t have the rent money on Spain. That is, we can presume, nearly everyone, period. And while there is no reason to hate Spain as a soccer power and no reason to believe they’re any less capable of a World Cup win as a result of this outcome, there absolutely was every reason to have hated them this afternoon, because their opponent was CAPE FREAKING VERDE, the third-smallest country ever to make a World Cup, a true underdog’s underdog whose roster mirrors Cape Verde’s own sizable diaspora. The players come from any number of domestic sides in any number of countries; a few play in Portuguese sides Benfica and Estrela, one even plays for the Spain’s Real Sociedad, but as many can be found in Turkey, Bulgaria, Morocco, Denmark, Russia, Ireland, and of course Columbus, Ohio.
Spanish coach (well, soon-to-be ex-coach if they can’t redeem themselves and fast) Luis de la Fuente tried to hide the shock of this outcome behind big country bravado, of course, but we know better. “We know we can improve,” he said, stating the ridiculously obvious. “We know we could have won the game today with what happened,” De la Fuente said. “We lacked freshness and being clinical. We have to keep growing, finding everyone’s rhythm. That’s what we’ll do over the next four days. We know our opponent was strong physically. We lacked quality, the final touch that these players usually have. We lacked those details, to score with the chances we have. But football is like that.”
With respect, football is almost never like that. The big’uns eat the little’uns, period. This, on the other hand . . . well, there is no exaggerated comp better than Cape Verde and Spain. A group of islands 350 miles off the coast of Africa in the eastern Atlantic that won its collective independence from Portugal just 51 years ago and even now is most formidable as a vacation destination just whomped a grossly superior team by a score of one solid chance to a bunch of squandered ones.
The Spanish even brought ultra-prodigy Lamine Yamal into the game 20 minutes from the end to set things right and . . . well, you saw the score. Spain had 74 percent of the possession, took 27 shots and basically spent the entire game getting in each others’ ways. That is when they weren’t putting their most dangerous shots right at Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha, the 40-year-old hero of all Earth who made seven saves to not only elevate Cape Verde in the estimations of all right-thinking people but also Angola, Moldova, Cyprus, and Slovakia, just to name four countries in which he has played in his career that are not in the World Cup but are currently claiming him as one of their native sons.
Despite this crime against humanity—Cape Verde not getting credit for the monumental triumph it just achieved, and the two extra points they deserve—and maybe because of it, they are now the darlings of the tournament with a match against Uruguay looming this coming Sunday. Like Spain, the Uruguayans are a formidable side with considerable history. Unlike Spain, they won’t be able to claim that they didn’t know who they were dealing with.
