As the referee blew the final whistle, Lionel Messi raised a clenched fist and blurted out “Vamos” at the Miami Stadium. It was more in relief than celebration —he knew his team had had a great escape.
This was to have been a cakewalk — defending champions Argentina against No. 67-ranked Cape Verde, an archipelago of less than 6 lakh people off the West African coast that was the third smallest country by population, after Curacao and Iceland, to have ever played a World Cup.
But what Messi and the world witnessed was a 3-2 cliffhanger in the round of 32 that gave the champions the scare of their lives, hurtling into extra time and witnessing the underdogs score one of the goals of the tournament before being felled by an 111th-minute own goal.
For Messi, it would have brought back bittersweet memories of what is widely celebrated as one of the greatest ever World Cup games — the 2022 final between Argentina and France that ended 3-3 after extra time and was settled by penalties.
At the end, many of the Cape Verde players — unheralded journeymen from relatively minor leagues in countries like Greece, Russia and Portugal — were seen in tears.
Thus ended this tournament’s Cinderella story — a band of rank outsiders remaining undefeated over 90 minutes in all their four matches, three of them against former World Cup winners that included group-stage rivals Spain and Uruguay.
The islanders have “won the world’s hearts” and leave the event with their heads high, was the verdict from football great Thierry Henry, who rhetorically urged Fifa to change the rules to allow the Player of the Match award — handed to the incomparable Messi — to be given to the entire Cape Verde team, instead.
Almost every neutral seemed to want Cape Verde to win. Watching from the dugout, a stony-faced Argentine coach, Lionel Scaloni, had refrained from celebrating the winner, surely embarrassed at the situation his team found itself in and worried about the next stages.
And yet, Argentina had not played badly. Instead, Cape Verde, led by their 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, whose heroics against Spain in their very first game had turned him into a global favourite, gallantly took the game to them.
Rather than merely defend with a low block, as many had expected them to, their fleet-footed forwards ran the Argentine defence ragged. During extra time, the ageing South Americans looked the more tired team.
The game had started well for Argentina, with the talismanic Messi scoring in the 29th minute, trapping a long-range lob from behind by Lisandro Martinez with ridiculous ease, using the outside of his left foot, before sublimely shooting the ball into the roof of the net with the same foot.
Stalemate broken, many expected a rout to follow. But Cape Verde responded with verve, eventually scoring the equaliser in the 59th minute when livewire Deroy Duarte slipped one in between the legs of a defender and past a surprised Emiliano Martinez.
A spell of relentless Argentine aggression followed, only to be thwarted by Vozinha, who made a point-blank save from a right-footed Messi shot before pushing away a bending free kick the Argentine had taken very quickly, looking to catch him off his guard.
In all, the Cape Verde skipper made eight saves, four from Messi alone, to take his tournament tally to 18.
Two minutes into extra-time, Argentina could be excused for thinking they had the game wrapped up when an unmarked Lisandro banged in a left-footer at the near post.
But Cape Verde had not read the script. Attack after attack harassed the tiring Argentines before Sidny Lopes Cabral cut in past a defender from the left and unleashed an astonishing curler from outside the box that went in at the far corner. The clock said 103 minutes.
“Even two goalkeepers could not have stopped that shot,” Henry said.
The stadium erupted. Cabral ran towards the dugout to be mobbed by teammates.
As the fear of early elimination seemed to creep into the Argentine fans’ minds and their team struggled to regain rhythm, Messi — who else — took matters in hand.
A corner whipped in from the left virtually landed on a leaping Sergio Romero’s head, took a deflection off Cape Verde defender Edinson Diney, and bulged the net. The sky-blue-and-white fans came alive again.
Cape Verde refused to give up, forcing a brilliant save from Emiliano before the referee’s whistle ended the Argentines’ agony.
“It wasn’t a coincidence that this team didn’t lose to Spain or Uruguay,” Messi said. “Some people might underestimate certain teams because of their names, but we knew this was never going to be an easy match. That’s what makes this World Cup so special. Everything is incredibly close.”
For once, the diminutive magician had been upstaged in a match he had stamped with his genius, but it had taken an entire team to do so.
Cape Verde have exposed Argentine weaknesses that Scaloni must address quickly. Players like Alexis MacAllister, Enzo Fernandez and Julian Alvarez, who had played a crucial role in the Qatar success, seem to have lost a bit of edge.
“I’ll discuss the negative aspects with the players, but the biggest positive is that we never gave up,” Scaloni said at the post-match news conference. We can debate whether we played well or poorly, but this team is never afraid to take responsibility and control the game.”
Argentina play Egypt in the last 16 on July 7, at 9.30 pm Indian time.