He cut in from the left, opened up his body and curled it into the top corner. Cape Verde 2, Argentina 2, 103rd minute tie Bookmakers gave Cape Verde a 4 percent chance to win. Sidney Lopes Cabral had just scored the greatest goal in Cape Verdean football history. He didn’t stop to admire him, running straight into the crowd to find his girlfriend before returning to the pitch. Argentina won 3-2 in extra time, in a match that was never even matched. But after the scoreline fades, people will remember the goal and run into the stands.
Two players stood at either end of that Cape Verde back line and between them they told the whole story of what this team is all about. Cabral is 23 years old, born in Rotterdam, one of seven squad members born in the Dutch city, more than those born in Praia, the island nation’s own capital. His parents left Santiago for the Netherlands at seventeen and met there. At the other end stood Wozinha, 40, who spent the tournament saving Messi and Spain’s shots and becoming a world name by doing so. His contract with Chaves in Portugal’s second division expired on 1 June. He walked out of the Hard Rock Stadium just weeks after his teammate’s valuation increased by ten million euros in his move to Trabzonspor. Cape Verde does not give its players a thing. It offers several, side-by-side on the same pitch.
Highlights | Argentina VS Cape Verde FIFA World Cup 2026
Cabral’s version almost didn’t survive its opening chapters. A football start at Helsingborg Twente’s academy in Sweden, before Helsingborg in Sweden, felt like something ended rather than a beginning: Rott-Weiss Erfurt, Germany’s fifth tier, in February 2022. “There was nothing at the club,” he told Maisfutebol. “It was shorts, a thermal shirt and a rain cape. Nothing else. We trained on a small artificial pitch, very hard. It was a real battle.” He earned £850 a month there using bin bags as curtains and training in shorts in the cold German winter. Erfurt won promotion. Next came Victoria Colon, then Portugal, where he joined Estrella da Amadora and then Benfica.
“My career has been a crazy story,” he said speak one After signing. “I am proud that I never gave up and always believed in myself. When I was on the bench in Germany’s fifth division, I never imagined that I would reach Benfica.” Weeks before this World Cup, in June, Benfica sold him to Trabzonspor for ten million euros.
Sidney Lopes Cabral scored the equalizer in the 103rd minute for Cape Verde against Argentina. (AP)
He was racially abused by fans during matches in Germany. It happened again, in a different way, at Benfica a few months later. After Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior accused teammate Gianluca Prestianni of racially abusing him during the first leg, UEFA provisionally suspended Prestiani and, while an investigation was underway, Cabral approached Vinicius after the return leg and asked for a shirt swap. Vinicius agreed, pointing to the tunnel, but the two never crossed paths again and the exchange never took place. Portuguese outlets including A Bola, O Jogo and Maisfutebol reported that Cabral had second thoughts, fearing a betrayal of Prestianni during the investigation, and settled the matter with Benfica’s staff. This did not protect him from the backlash. Supporters flooded his Instagram with hostile comments, with some calling for him to leave the club, and Prestianni was seen liking a post criticizing him. Cabral told the Guardian that the messages had become racist. “I had to turn off my phone,” he said. “It’s very sad.”
Also read | On the night Cape Verde, the smallest nation in the World Cup, almost broke Messi’s Argentina
None of Cabral’s stories explain how the nation got here. Cape Verde, with a population of approximately 525,000, is the smallest nation to reach the knockout stages of the Men’s World Cup and had come through the group stage without winning a match. Before any of this seemed possible, Cabral had told his family: “I’m going to be a great football player, I’m going to reach the top. And I’m living my dream now,” he told the Guardian. Before facing the best player of his generation, he had already planned how to keep the occasion at arm’s length. “If you’re like Messi, you lose your mind,” he said. After the final whistle, he was thinking of someone else entirely. “I’m going to change my shirt with Otamendi,” he told a Brazilian outlet. Lance. “He was my teammate until this season.”
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The Portuguese-language coverage of the defeat found little room for grief. Maisfutebol wrote that there was no place for tears of sadness that night in Praia, Mindelo, Sal or the diaspora scattered around the world, only tears of pride could cross the Atlantic. Cape Verde made it home in the round of 32 from their first World Cup. Cabral’s goal against Messi’s Argentina remains.