Overview
Only one of the four teams participating in the World Cup for the first time qualified for the round of 32 in this year's tournament. And the reward for Cabo Verde after an impressive group stage journey is a clash with the reigning champion Argentina in Miami.
Both Argentina and Cabo Verde entered the knockout stage with an unbeaten record. While Argentina won all 3 group stage matches, Cabo Verde advanced thanks to three draws in a group with the participation of two former World Cup champions.
Coach Lionel Scaloni's team closed the group stage with a 3-1 victory over Jordan to maintain a winning streak, after previously defeating Algeria and Austria respectively.
Giovani Lo Celso opened the score with a beautiful free kick before Lautaro Martinez doubled the score from the penalty spot. Lionel Messi came on as a substitute and scored his sixth goal in the tournament, after Mousa Al Tamari narrowed the score for Jordan in the second half.
The successful free kick against Jordan helped Messi become the first player to score in seven consecutive appearances at the biggest football festival on the planet.
In that 7-match streak, the captain of the Argentine team has scored 11 goals. In the last 5 World Cup knockout matches, Messi also directly contributed to 9 goals with five goals and four assists.
Fixed situations are likely to continue to be Argentina's powerful weapon against the Cape Verde defense, a team that has kept a clean sheet in two of the three group stage matches when drawing with Spain and Saudi Arabia with a score of 0-0, interspersed with a 2-2 draw against Uruguay.
In the second clean sheet match, goalkeeper Vozinha became the third goalkeeper over 40 years old in World Cup history to have 2 or more clean sheets, after Peter Shilton and Dino Zoff.
3 consecutive draws helped Cabo Verde rank second in Group H after Spain, and also became the first team to participate in the World Cup unbeaten in all 3 group stage matches since Senegal in 2002.
The African representative is the first team to qualify for the knockout round with 3 draws since Chile in 1998. They are also the fourth team in history to draw all 3 opening matches of the World Cup, after Wales, Cameroon and the Republic of Ireland.
That achievement may bring confidence to Cabo Verde, because Argentina often faces many difficulties in the knockout rounds. In the last 13 knockout matches at the World Cup, Albiceleste had to go into extra time seven times. In fact, no team has played more than 90 minutes than Argentina, with a total of 11 matches, equal to Germany and Italy.
At the 2022 World Cup, Argentina also had to overcome the Netherlands in a penalty shootout in the quarterfinals before defeating France on penalties in the final. Cabo Verde will certainly hope to pull the reigning champion into another physical and brave battle like that.
Head-to-head record
This will be the first time Argentina and Cabo Verde have faced each other at the national team level.
Argentina is having an impressive record against African representatives at the World Cup when winning all seven recent encounters. However, Albiceleste suffered a 0-1 defeat to Cameroon in the opening match of the 1990 World Cup.
For Cabo Verde, this is also a memorable milestone when they become the third team in history to face the reigning World Cup champion right in the knockout round in their first participation in the tournament, after Norway (lost to Italy 1-2 in 1938) and Ghana (lost to Brazil 0-3 in 2006).
Score prediction: Argentina 3-0 Cabo Verde
The match between Argentina and Cabo Verde takes place at 5:00 AM on July 4th (Vietnam time).
