Cabo Verde will live forever
How do you put a number on immortality?
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Zero point zero three eight, in case you were wondering. That number —0.038, just shy of four percent — is the one you’re looking for to carve a myth into a field of grass. It is the long-hidden answer to the formulae alchemists tortured themselves over, trying desperately to turn lead into gold. It is a star glimmering in the sky that should not be there. The one that sends scholars over deserts, across seas, searching for a truth to be revealed to them.
It was the expected goal value of Sidny Lopes Cabral’s shot that brought Cabo Verde level with Argentina in the 103rd minute of their Round of 32 World Cup match. The thud of the ball leaving his foot sounded like the weight of God’s pen falling onto the page.
In the biz, this is not what we’d call a high-value opportunity. And even though analyzing single-shot xG is not incredibly useful in most cases, I still wanted to dig up the number just to confirm the story my eyes were telling me: that somehow Cabo Verde had conjured up a miracle through equal parts gritty defensive effort and pure magic.
Almost all the numbers and charts you’ll find on this game will tell you the story of how one team clearly outplayed the other, and it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn the team doing the dominating were the defending World Cup champions, featuring the greatest men’s player to ever live. In fact, if you didn’t watch the game and just looked at some of these charts, you’d be forgiven for simply assuming Argentina ran Cabo Verde over with a Mack truck.
I think a lot of the time we look at these advanced stats as fans first, searching for the rights and wrongs our teams have done. Of course, some of us are also nerds, so there’s a level of academic rigor to this way of analyzing games that looking at a scoreboard can’t touch. But we still like a scoreboard. We’re still fans. Seeing a big xG number and pretty passing charts feels good; seeing bigger numbers than an opponent feels even better.
The numbers in Argentina vs. Cabo Verde aren’t ones for fans of either team, really. Neither side will likely feel they paint an accurate picture of their respective team’s performance. But I do think the numbers reveal a beautiful story.
First of all, it’s abundantly clear that Argentina afforded themselves many paths to victory. That’s a thing that tends to happen for you when you’ve got Lionel Messi. They got off many shots, created multiple big chances, and they got themselves three goals to show for it.
Cabo Verde, on the other hand, did not have many paths to victory. They knew they’d need to defend like their lives depended upon it, something they had already become accustomed to in this tournament. They also knew that they’d probably have more chances to get forward than they had against Spain. That was thanks to Messi operating as a pure attacker, often leaving Nahuel Molina all alone to cover the Argentine right flank.
Cabo Verde never found that kind of joy against Spain, whose possession was too suffocating, though they did still manage to hold them to a memorable 0-0 draw. Against Argentina, there would be chances for Cabo Verde to attack (largely because of Messi), and they would very much need to attack (also because of that Messi guy).
But here’s the thing: Cabo Verde are not a chance-production factory. In their four World Cup games, they only managed to crack one expected goal in a match once (1.52 xG against Saudi Arabia). They had a gameplan to follow, yes, but they would need to be perfect in that gameplan — and a miracle or two on top of that.
And then the miracles came.
Deroy Duarte, collecting a deft pass through Facundo Medina’s legs and beating Emi Martinez with a perfect low shot to the far corner.
Another eight saves from Vozinha, personally denying Messi on several occasions and collecting a few million more Instagram followers along the way.
And then, when a second goal felt like too much to hope for from Cabo Verde, Lopes Cabral with the shot of his life. A shot that came from building on the right side of Argentina’s defense, where space was plentiful. Part tactical wrinkle, part sorcery. Savor that number: 0.038.
In a tournament where I have personally said “goal of the tournament” multiple times, this was the goal of the tournament. There might be a goal scored, somewhere, somehow, that is of better quality. But there will be none where the magic meets the moment like this one.
Of course, you know how the rest goes. Argentina still score a third goal, one that Cabo Verde finally cannot answer. Of course, this must happen, too. Heroes don’t always make it to the end of the story, after all. But we will remember this game. We will remember this Argentina team as the first in World Cup history to lose a game by outscoring their opponent. We will remember how Messi and Argentina, for all their brilliance, still had to scrape and fight and push themselves to the brink just to get to the Round of 16. We will remember Argentina because Argentina will keep playing.
But Cabo Verde will live forever. Vozinha. Duarte. Steven Moreira and Jamiro Monteiro. Pico Lopes and Kevin Pina. These are the names that will echo as long as people are trying to kick a ball into a net.
Sidny Lopes Cabral will live forever. In eternity, a ball rippling through the air, laughing at the planet’s curvature as it carves its own path above it. A billion eyes or more watching it.
This is why we watch. This is why we play.
For 0.038.
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