Well, this World Cup has found its Cinderella.
Tiny Cape Verde, which shocked the soccer world by drawing with Spain in its first World Cup match, is through to the knockout rounds after drawing with Saudi Arabia in Houston and Spain’s defeat of Uruguay on Friday night. It’s a truly incredible result and sets up one of the most unbelievable matchups possible in the Round of 32: The underdogs will take on the reigning world champions Argentina and all-time superstar Lionel Messi.
Don’t worry, we’ll get more into it below. But, for now, let’s explain why Saturday will see a game that neither team wants to win and how FIFA’s new rules for this World Cup set up a particularly wild scenario.
Strip it all away and soccer is a simple sport. Two teams do everything they can to score more goals than the other in order to secure a glorious win. Easy to understand, right? Well, these rules sometimes fly out the window at this stage of a World Cup.
You just have to look at the Group J match between Austria and Algeria later today as an example of how group permutations can twist the very basic laws of the game.
