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  • Farewell Cape Verde – the underdogs the World Cup will never forget

    Farewell Cape Verde – the underdogs the World Cup will never forget

    When the 2026 FIFA World Cup knockout round kicked off in Miami, few gave tournament debutants Cape Verde — the smallest nation competing in this edition of the tournament — a fighting chance against reigning champions Argentina, led by global superstar Lionel Messi. What unfolded over 120 minutes of play would go down as one of the most memorable underdog stories in World Cup history, cementing Cape Verde’s place in football lore long after their exit from the competition.

    Entering the tournament ranked 67th in the world, Cape Verde defied all pre-tournament predictions to claw their way out of the group stage, notching three draws that included a stunning 0-0 hold against European champions Spain in their opening match. Heroics from 40-year-old clubless goalkeeper Vozinha, who made seven saves to shut out Spain, turned the unheralded shot-stopper into an overnight global sensation. A viral photo of Vozinha in tears after the Spain draw, holding his country’s flag aloft with unbridled pride, circulated across social media, and his consistent elite performances — 18 total saves through four matches, the third-highest total of any keeper at the tournament — only amplified his growing fanbase. Former England right-back Gary Neville predicts Vozinha will not be without a club for long, calling his performances at the tournament calm, composed, and world-class.

    Against Argentina, Cape Verde’s Cinderella run nearly delivered the biggest upset in modern World Cup history. After Messi put the defending champions ahead early, Cape Verde fought back to level the score at 1-1, forcing the match into extra time. Argentina retook the lead late in extra time, only for Sidny Lopes Cabral to strike a sensational long-range wonder goal that drew the Blue Sharks level once more. A late cruel deflection off Diney Borges from Cristian Romero’s header ultimately broke Cape Verde hearts, sealing a 3-2 win for Argentina that sent the defending champions through to the last 16.

    When the final whistle blew, Cape Verde’s players collapsed to the turf, their magical run cut short just 10 minutes short of a penalty shootout. But while the scoreline put them on the exit lane, the small island nation left the United States having won over millions of fans around the world, and earned universal praise from football legends for their courage, unity, and unwavering competitiveness against the world’s best.

    “Cape Verde have lost, but they’ve won,” former Scotland international James McFadden told BBC Radio 5 Live. “They have shown courage, togetherness, unity and unwavering belief in what they are and what they can do. The story of this tournament is Cape Verde. That is what you want to see in a football side.”

    Neville described Cape Verde’s performance as “one of the greatest performances” he had ever seen from an underdog, adding: “They are crying because they are going home. They don’t want to go home. They want to be here for the rest of their lives. This is a moment that’s probably not going to come back for some of these players. It’s magical but also upsetting.”

    Cape Verde manager Bubista said he was bursting with pride for his players’ historic effort, noting: “We showed that we may be a small country but we can play against the best teams in the world. That’s a reason for pride. We made history for our country. To be able to play the way we did against the world champions, and to draw level twice, is something incredible.”

    Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes, a centre-back for Shamrock Rovers who featured in all four of Cape Verde’s tournament matches, summed up the team’s legacy: “One of the best things to come from this World Cup is nobody asks where Cape Verde is on the map any more – this is history in itself for us. We’ve put ourselves on the map. We’re a small nation but with big hearts and we showed what is possible – and if you believe, you can achieve.”

    The breakout performance by Cape Verde has reignited debate around global football development, with pundits calling for global governing body FIFA to expand resources to smaller footballing nations. Former England striker Ian Wright told ITV that FIFA must ensure funding reaches all corners of the global game to create more “Cape Verde moments.”

    “That’s what you’re ideally hoping will happen around the world and this is why Fifa have to do so much to make sure the funds they get do reach everybody,” Wright said. “What this does show people is that when you give people the opportunity they can get onto the biggest stage no matter how small they are and they can have it with the world champions, with one of the greatest players in the world. It was a Herculean effort from them, absolutely.”

    The 48-team World Cup expansion, a hotly debated topic ahead of this 2026 tournament, has also found a new wave of support from pundits who saw Cape Verde’s run as proof that smaller nations can deliver magic on the global stage. Neville, a former sceptic of expansion, said he has changed his mind after watching the Blue Sharks’ historic run.

  • More cows than pupils – what is behind mass school closures in rural Kenya?

    More cows than pupils – what is behind mass school closures in rural Kenya?

    On a morning that would normally hum with the chatter of playing children and the scratch of pencils on paper, Kaliluni Primary School, a remote rural learning institution in southern Kenya, hosts only grazing cows. These animals wander between cracked, half-hanging classroom doors, which gape open to reveal neat rows of unoccupied wooden chairs. Three years ago, more than 200 students filled this small campus with noise and energy. Today, just five children remain enrolled – and on the day a BBC reporting team visited, even those five and their school’s only remaining teacher were nowhere to be found.

    Leaving the crumbling, overgrown school compound, where tattered textbooks lie scattered across dusty classroom floors, reporters spotted 12-year-old Maureen Mwisiwa in her starched blue school uniform, walking slowly and dejectedly toward her home. Maureen told the BBC she had shown up to Kaliluni every day for a week, only to find herself completely alone with no classes to attend. “I feel bad missing lessons all those days while pupils in other schools are still in class,” she explained.

    Her mother, Josephine Muasya, is one of the last remaining parents with a child enrolled at the school, and she is preparing to transfer Maureen to a distant campus where most of the girl’s former classmates have already relocated. The new school sits 8 kilometers (5 miles) away across unmaintained, rocky roads. With no public transit service in this isolated region of Kitui County, more than 200 kilometers east of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, children cut across steep, uneven terrain to shorten their commute. Even with the shortcut, Maureen will walk for more than an hour each way, compared to the 10-minute trip she took to reach Kaliluni.

    Muasya says she once held out hope that the national government would intervene to revive her local school, sending additional trained teachers and upgraded facilities to meet the requirements of Kenya’s new national curriculum. Today, that hope is gone. The curriculum Muasya refers to is the Competency-Based Education (CBE) system, a sweeping national education overhaul rolled out in 2017 designed to replace Kenya’s old exam-heavy model with a more creative, practical, skills-focused approach to learning.

    While the reform was intended to reduce educational inequality across the country, it has triggered an unforeseen crisis for Kenya’s most under-resourced rural primary schools. Kaliluni Primary is just one of more than 2,000 rural schools across the East African nation now facing permanent closure after catastrophic enrollment collapses.

    Under the previous education framework, primary school spanned eight grades, with students moving to senior secondary school around age 14. The CBE system restructures basic education to end primary school after grade six, adding a new three-year junior secondary stage for grades seven through nine, which places greater emphasis on science and hands-on technical subjects. The government ruled that existing primary schools would absorb these new junior secondary grades, pushing the transition to senior school to age 15.

    But the restructuring created an immediate, unmanageable burden for low-resource rural schools, which suddenly needed additional classrooms, fully equipped science laboratories, subject-specialized trained teachers, and updated learning materials to comply with the new requirements.

    “Infrastructure gaps are acute. Many rural schools lack basic facilities such as laboratories, yet learners are expected to pursue science and technical pathways,” Mark Kasyoki, a Kenyan education expert, told the BBC. He warned that the CBE curriculum, which was designed to close equality gaps in Kenyan education by making quality learning free for all students, could end up widening those gaps if implementation challenges are not addressed as a matter of urgency.

    Kitui County has been one of the hardest-hit regions. Sooma Primary School permanently closed its doors in 2023 after enrollment dropped to just six students. The following year, Manooni Primary shut down after only three children registered for the new term. There were no closing ceremonies, no goodbye gatherings under the giant shade trees that anchor most rural schoolyards. Students simply left one by one, quietly relocating to better-resourced schools farther from their homes.

    Tabitha Katingu, a Kitui County mother who transferred both of her children to a new school 3 kilometers from her home after their local campus shut down, says the CBE reform was supposed to lift up low-income rural communities, not undermine their access to education. “The CBE curriculum should strengthen schools, especially for low-income communities, not weaken them. We want the best for our children. If a school has not enough trained teachers and other required facilities – why would we waste time there?” she said.

    The transition crisis has also left rural teachers frustrated and disillusioned. “The challenge is not that teachers are unwilling to embrace CBE. It’s that many of us have not been adequately prepared for it. The training has been inconsistent, especially in rural schools,” one Kitui-based teacher explained.

    Not all local residents blame the school closure crisis entirely on the curriculum overhaul. Some point to broader demographic shifts reshaping rural Kenya: falling national fertility rates have led to fewer school-age children in small villages, while working-age adults increasingly relocate to urban centers for better employment opportunities, taking their children with them.

    “Young people want to marry, but life is hard. Everything is expensive, and many fear they cannot provide for a family. That is why there are fewer children growing up in our villages nowadays,” Sarah Mumbua, a long-time resident of Kilukuya village, told the BBC. National statistics show roughly 70% of Kenyans still lived in rural areas in 2023, but UN-Habitat projects that more than half of the country’s population will live in urban areas by 2050 as migration continues.

    The enrollment decline is not limited to primary schools: government data shows 2,700 of Kenya’s 9,605 public secondary schools, most in remote rural regions, now enroll fewer than the 150 students deemed the minimum for viable operations. Local media reported earlier this year that 10 rural secondary schools were closed after teachers arrived for the new term to find zero students had registered for classes.

    In January 2026, the government celebrated a major milestone for the CBE reform: 1.1 million pioneer grade 10 students, the first full cohort to complete the entire new curriculum, transitioned to senior secondary school. But even as officials marked the occasion, they acknowledged the growing crisis in rural areas.

    Education Minister Julius Ogamba confirmed earlier this year that 2,145 under-enrolled public primary schools will be either closed or merged with neighboring campuses to optimize limited government resources. He also announced a nationwide school viability audit, noting that the government has set a minimum enrollment threshold of 45 students for a public primary school to remain open. “It makes no sense to have a school with just 10 students when you need a headmaster, a classroom, a watchman and a teacher. It doesn’t make sense. This tells us that we need to face reality. We now need to change course and ensure that our schools have all the necessary facilities and the right number of students,” he said.

    But the wave of rural school closures has created a new crisis for surviving regional schools, which are now facing crippling overcrowding as they struggle to absorb hundreds of displaced students. Dr. Emmanuel Manyasa, CEO of Usawa Agenda, a Kenyan non-profit education research organization, warns that rapid mass closures carry long-term risks for the entire regional education system.

    “CBE is a good curriculum but we’re failing in the implementation. We skipped critical early stages like a cost and implementation plan. We have been just crisis-managing the transition, which is not sustainable,” Dr. Manyasa told the BBC.

    Bernard Musyoki, a 36-year-old teacher who worked for seven years in a rural Machakos County school (a region neighboring Kitui), saw the impact of closures firsthand. His small community school, which had fewer than 20 students enrolled, was merged into a larger regional campus, and Musyoki transferred to the new overcrowded facility. He says policymakers have swung from one extreme to another, leaving children in larger schools stuck in overcrowded classrooms that lack sufficient resources.

    Musyoki argues the government should reverse course on mass closures, instead capping class sizes and distributing teachers and resources more evenly across rural institutions to ensure the CBE reform benefits all students, regardless of where they live. “Every child, whether they are in a small rural school or a large one, deserves equal access to teachers, classrooms and learning materials,” he said.

  • The friends who drove from Ghana to the World Cup

    The friends who drove from Ghana to the World Cup

    Football fandom has long inspired supporters to push boundaries to cheer on their national teams, but one tight-knit group of friends from Ghana has turned that devotion into an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Rather than booking a flight or joining an organized tour to reach the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the group chose to hit the open road, starting their journey in Ghana’s bustling capital Accra and navigating their vehicles across multiple continents to follow the Ghana men’s national football team, affectionately known as the Black Stars. Their route took them through North Africa, across Europe, and onward to North America, where they stopped in the United States and Canada to continue following the team’s campaign. BBC News Africa caught up with the travel crew in Boston, where the group opened up about the adventure that has strengthened their decades-long friendship and turned a simple pilgrimage into a global story of grassroots football passion. The report was produced by Celestine Karoney and Ian Williams, with filming by Alassane Dia and editing by Emmanuel James, and was published as part of BBC News Africa’s Africa Sport coverage just 55 minutes after it was finalized. What makes their journey stand out among thousands of fan travel stories is the sheer scale of their self-planned expedition: traversing multiple borders, navigating unfamiliar road networks, and overcoming logistical challenges all for the love of their national team and the shared joy of adventure with friends.

  • Ndileka Mandela on anti-migrant protests: ‘Grandad wanted rule of law not mob justice’

    Ndileka Mandela on anti-migrant protests: ‘Grandad wanted rule of law not mob justice’

    As South Africa grapples with rising tensions over immigration and a wave of violent anti-migrant protests across the nation, a prominent member of the Mandela family has stepped forward to reaffirm the core values that defined the country’s iconic anti-apartheid leader. Ndileka Mandela, granddaughter of Nelson Mandela, the nation’s first post-apartheid president, has publicly pushed back against the vigilantism driving recent unrest, arguing that her grandfather would never have backed the mob justice that has swept through communities targeting foreign-born residents.

    In her statement addressing the unrest, Ndileka Mandela clarified that while the late statesman would have backed sensible, rights-respecting policy to govern immigration and protect national border integrity, he never would have condoned extrajudicial violence or collective targeting of migrant groups. Her intervention comes at a moment of deep national debate, as anti-migrant sentiment has spilled over into public disorder, stoked by economic grievances and inflammatory rhetoric that scapegoats foreign nationals for the country’s ongoing socioeconomic challenges, including high unemployment and limited access to basic services.

    By grounding her criticism of the protests in the legacy of the man who led South Africa’s transition to inclusive democracy, Ndileka Mandela has added a high-profile moral voice to calls for calm and for policymakers to address the root causes of anti-migrant tension through lawful, inclusive policy rather than violence. Her comments highlight a growing divide between those who embrace populist, exclusionary approaches to immigration and those who uphold the founding democratic principles of equal rights and the rule of law that Nelson Mandela spent his life advancing.

  • Zuma showing South Africa ‘middle finger’ by meeting Gupta brother – minister

    Zuma showing South Africa ‘middle finger’ by meeting Gupta brother – minister

    A recently surfaced photograph of former South African President Jacob Zuma alongside Ajay Gupta, one of the brothers at the center of the country’s infamous “state capture” corruption scandal, has ignited fierce political backlash and reignited questions about Zuma’s ongoing ambitions to return to power. The image, published this week by Indian media, captures the pair at a Hindu temple in India, and has drawn sharp condemnation from sitting members of South Africa’s cabinet. The long-running controversy around the Gupta family stretches back more than a decade, when the wealthy business clan was accused of leveraging their close personal relationship with then-President Zuma to siphon off state funds, manipulate cabinet appointments, and skew national policy for private profit. The Guptas have consistently rejected all allegations of wrongdoing, but the pressure mounted in 2018 when a judicial inquiry was launched into the so-called “state capture” scheme, a scandal that has been estimated to cost South African taxpayers billions of rand. Facing investigation, the entire Gupta family fled South Africa that same year. South African authorities withdrew Ajay Gupta’s arrest warrant in 2019, while his two younger brothers Atul and Rajesh relocated to the United Arab Emirates. In 2023, an Emirati court rejected South Africa’s formal extradition request for the pair, leaving the brothers outside the reach of South African judicial process. Zuma, who was the head of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and South African president from 2009 to 2018, was forced to resign from office amid the overwhelming weight of the state capture allegations and a cascade of other corruption claims. Like the Guptas, he has never admitted any wrongdoing. After splitting from the ANC, Zuma now leads the newly formed opposition uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, and multiple reports confirm he told associates after the temple meeting that he intends to run for president in South Africa’s upcoming national elections. Cabinet Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni launched a scathing attack on Zuma in a press briefing held Friday, calling the meeting a deliberate insult to South Africans who suffered financial harm from the alleged state capture scheme. “It is very disturbing that a former state president openly and unapologetically shows the middle finger to South Africans who have lost a lot of money through the Gupta brothers’ shenanigans,” Ntshavheni said, adding that Zuma’s announcement of a new presidential bid is just another example of his disregard for public accountability. Ntshavheni also condemned the involvement of Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s sitting high commissioner to India, who accompanied Zuma to the meeting with Gupta, calling Sooklal’s presence a “disgrace”. In a separate announcement, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola confirmed that the national government would launch a formal investigation into the meeting and Sooklal’s role in it. Lamola also argued that Zuma’s independent meeting with a figure wanted by South African judicial authorities amounts to the former president running an unofficial parallel diplomatic agenda that undermines the elected government’s authority. As South Africa prepares for upcoming national elections, the controversy has thrust the long-simmering state capture scandal back into the national spotlight, setting the stage for a fiery political battle over accountability and Zuma’s political future.

  • US withdraws troops from Nigeria after Islamic State mission

    US withdraws troops from Nigeria after Islamic State mission

    The United States has completed the withdrawal of the majority of its troops deployed to Nigeria earlier this year as part of a joint campaign against Islamist extremist groups in the West African nation, US military officials confirmed this week.

    The joint counter-terrorism initiative traces back to December, when US and Nigerian forces launched a coordinated offensive in the volatile Lake Chad Basin. The operation opened with targeted strikes against militant positions on Christmas Day, followed by the deployment of roughly 200 US military personnel to the region two months later to support local counter-insurgency efforts. Over the course of the months-long mission, senior Islamic State (IS) leader Abu-Bilal al-Minuki was killed in action.

    On Thursday, US Air Forces Africa Commander General Dagvin Anderson announced the drawdown of troops, framing the mission as a clear success. Anderson emphasized that the joint operation had “significantly degraded” IS leadership structures in Nigeria, disrupting both the group’s local command network and its connections to the global IS extremist apparatus. This disruption, he added, has severely limited the organization’s ability to coordinate communication and plan attacks across the region.

    Nigerian military officials have sought to reassure the public that the US troop withdrawal will not undermine ongoing counter-insurgency progress. “The departure of US soldiers will not affect our momentum in any way,” Maj-Gen Michael Onoja, a spokesperson for the Nigerian military, told the BBC. Both Nigerian and US officials confirmed that bilateral intelligence-sharing partnerships, a core component of the counter-terrorism cooperation, will remain fully in place following the drawdown. Additional US military personnel that were stationed in Nigeria prior to the Lake Chad Basin operation will also remain in the country, Nigerian military spokesperson Major General Samaila Uba confirmed.

    The deepened security cooperation between the two nations emerged after a period of diplomatic tension: Washington previously criticized Nigerian authorities for failing to adequately protect vulnerable populations from extremist violence, and went so far as to allege a “Christian genocide” was unfolding in the country. Nigerian officials flatly rejected the accusation, arguing that the country’s ongoing violence stems from complex, multifaceted security issues that impact all religious and ethnic communities equally. Independent organizations that monitor political violence in Nigeria back this framing, noting that the majority of IS-linked attacks in the country target Muslim communities, as the group’s most active operating regions are in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim northern states.

    When the 200 US troops were deployed earlier this year, US officials stressed from the outset that the deployed personnel would not participate in direct frontline ground combat, serving only in a support capacity.

    Regional security analysts point out that the threat landscape from IS has shifted dramatically over the past decade, with an estimated 90% of all global IS attacks now occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Of these, the Nigeria-based IS faction is the most active and deadly across the continent. Even with the successful targeting of senior leadership, jihadist groups continue to carry out regular attacks across northeastern Nigeria, and the country faces a cascade of overlapping security challenges that extend beyond Islamist insurgency. Widespread banditry and organized criminal violence, long concentrated in the north, have spread into central and parts of southern Nigeria, worsening the country’s overall security crisis.

    More reporting on Nigerian and African news is available at BBCAfrica.com, and audiences can follow BBC Africa’s coverage across social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

  • Can Girmay recreate past Tour de France glories with new team?

    Can Girmay recreate past Tour de France glories with new team?

    Tour de France history-maker Biniam Girmay is gearing up for another run at cycling’s most prestigious sprint title, bringing fresh ambition, a new squad, and the backing of football World Cup champion Andres Iniesta to this year’s race.

    It has been two years since the 26-year-old Eritrean cyclist etched his name into the record books at the 2024 Tour de France, when he became the first black African rider to claim a stage victory, then went on to secure the event’s green jersey — cycling’s top honor for sprinters — as the first African rider ever to win the classification. After five seasons with Belgium’s Intermarche-Wanty team, Girmay made a high-profile move last December, signing a three-year deal with NSN Cycling, a squad co-founded by former Spanish international and Barcelona icon Iniesta, who lifted the 2010 FIFA World Cup trophy with his national side.

    “I am super happy and super motivated to start, to go for stage wins, and chase the green jersey,” Girmay told BBC Sport Africa. “This has been our main goal since the beginning of this season. I have stronger team-mates and a stronger lead-out compared to last year. That is why my results are better. We have worked so hard for this event and we want to achieve what we have planned.”

    This year’s Tour kicks off with a blistering 20km team time trial in the searing heat of Barcelona, followed by a third stage that cuts across the Pyrenees — a tough opening that will test specialist sprinters from the very first day. But Girmay, who grew up in East Africa, says the hot, harsh conditions may work to his advantage. “If you look at my best sprint performances, they were in the 2024 Tour de France, and we had two super hard and hot stages to start in Italy. That’s harder for the others – this is potentially also a benefit for me this year, as I can survive the heat better. We have hot and hard stages to begin right after the team time trial.”

    Backed by a joint venture between Swiss investment firm Stoneweg and Iniesta’s Never Say Never sports promotion company, NSN Cycling boasts a far larger budget and stronger resource pool than Girmay’s former team, and the early returns on the move have already been positive. Ahead of this year’s Tour, Girmay has notched three wins at UCI-sanctioned races, and claimed the overall green points classification at the Volta Comunitat Valenciana. After taking third in the green jersey standings at last year’s Tour, he is confident his new setup puts him in position to compete for the top prize once again.

    “I’ve had enough preparation for this year’s race, especially compared to previous years,” he said. “We also have everybody more or less in the same shape. That also makes a big difference because, as a team, we need to have everybody at the same level.”

    All eyes will be on Girmay when the race reaches its first dedicated sprint stages. Most cycling analysts peg the fifth stage, which runs from Lannemezan to Pau in southwestern France, as his first real opportunity to showcase his speed. NSN’s tactical team will be keeping close tabs on his main rivals: Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech and Tim Merlier of Soudal-QuickStep, the two other top sprinters in this year’s field. Even earlier, Girmay could make an impact on the grueling 195.9km third stage, which ends with a 1.7km climb at a 7% gradient — a challenge that should play to his strengths as the strongest climber among the race’s top sprinters.

    As the only African rider competing in this year’s Tour, Girmay carries the hopes of his home continent on his shoulders, but he says the next generation of Eritrean cycling talent is already on track to join him at cycling’s biggest event. He singled out 20-year-old Milkias Maekele, a fellow sprinter who claimed a dominant solo victory at the Eritrean National Road Championships last month. A product of the same Asmara-based As.Be.Co development program that launched Girmay’s career, Maekele spent 2025 with Germany’s UCI Continental Team Bike Aid — a squad with a long track record of supporting emerging African talent — and earned a promotion to the development team of top-tier World Tour squad Netcompany Ineos after just one standout season.

    Girmay says the 6-foot-tall young sprinter has all the makings of a future star. “He has a strong mind for racing, a truly winning mentality. I am super happy for him for winning the national championships. He really deserved it as he raced very well.”

    Eritrea already stands as Africa’s most successful cycling nation, with four other Eritrean riders competing at the World Tour level, including fan-favorites Henok Mulubrhan of XDS Astana and Natnael Tesfatsion of Movistar. But Girmay remains the undisputed face of African cycling, and a second green jersey win would only cement his legacy. For the coming weeks of the Tour, expect to see hundreds of Eritrean flags waving at every sprint finish as the history-making rider chases another milestone.

  • Argentina v Cape Verde: Breaking down biggest World Cup knockout mismatch

    Argentina v Cape Verde: Breaking down biggest World Cup knockout mismatch

    When football fans around the world began making their predictions for the 2026 FIFA World Cup knockout stage, few could have imagined the mouthwatering underdog story that would dominate pre-match hype: Lionel Messi, widely regarded as the greatest player to ever step onto a football pitch, preparing to face 40-year-old Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha in one of the most lopsided but anticipated matchups in modern tournament history.

    The game will kick off Friday at Miami Stadium, kicking off what is already being framed as a classic meeting between tournament powerhouse Argentina and the smallest nation ever to reach a World Cup knockout round: first-time qualifier Cape Verde. What makes the matchup so captivating is not just the gulf in experience and resources between the two sides, but the incredible underdog journey that brought the African side to this point, a run that has already secured their place in World Cup folklore.

    Few gave Cape Verde any chance of progressing out of their group, even before they faced off against defending European champions Spain. But the Blue Sharks held the giants to a shock 0-0 draw, a result that already ranked among the biggest upsets in modern World Cup history – even without a win. Back-to-back draws against two-time winners Uruguay and Saudi Arabia followed, enough to secure a second-place group finish and a historic ticket to the round of 32. Their reward? A clash with the current world champions.

    On paper, it looks like one of the biggest mismatches World Cup football has ever seen. Argentina is one of the most storied national teams in the sport, with a legacy stretching back to the very first World Cup in 1930, where they finished as runners-up. The side has won the World Cup three times: first in 1978 with a 3-1 final victory over the Netherlands, again in 1986 against West Germany, and most recently in 2022 in Qatar, where they defeated France on penalties after a thrilling 3-3 draw. Beyond global success, Argentina hold the record for most Copa America titles with 16 wins, including the last two consecutive tournaments, and have ranked among the top three in the FIFA world rankings since March 2022, holding the number one spot for two years before France claimed the top position last year.

    Cape Verde’s football origin story could not be more different. The nation only gained independence from Portugal in 1975, its national football federation was founded in 1982, and it only accepted FIFA membership in 1986 – the same year Argentina lifted their second World Cup trophy. The Blue Sharks first entered World Cup qualifying in 2002, and did not come close to qualification until the 2022 cycle, when they missed out on Qatar by just one point, falling short after a 1-1 draw with Nigeria in their final group match. For 2026, despite being drawn into a qualifying group with eight-time qualifier Cameroon, Cape Verde finished top of the group with just one loss from 10 matches to secure their first ever World Cup berth.

    At the continental level, Cape Verde only made their first Africa Cup of Nations appearance in 2013, where they reached the quarter-finals, and have since qualified for three more tournaments, including another quarter-final run in 2023. They currently sit 64th in the FIFA world rankings, having hovered between 60th and 80th for the last nine years.

    Much of Cape Verde’s recent progress can be traced back to a 2010 strategic shift, when then-manager Joao de Deus began tapping into the nation’s large global diaspora to strengthen the national squad, a common tactic for small nations in modern international football. Today, 12 members of the 2026 World Cup squad were born in Cape Verde – including Kevin Pina, who scored the nation’s first ever World Cup goal in their 2-2 draw with Uruguay – but the side relies heavily on diaspora talent, with five players born in the Netherlands, three in France and three in Portugal. No players currently play in Cape Verde’s semi-pro domestic league, with 23 plying their trade across Europe. Only one, Villarreal defender Logan Costa, plays in one of Europe’s top five leagues.

    The squad’s surprise star, 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, is currently an official free agent after his contract with Portuguese second division side Chaves expired earlier this week. Vozinha is one of seven squad members playing in Portugal, with only full-back Sidny Lopes Cabral, who is set to join Turkey’s Trabzonspor after leaving Benfica, playing at a top-tier club.

    The gap in squad value between the two sides is staggering. According to transfer market data site Transfermarkt, Cape Verde’s entire squad has a combined market value of just €54.5 million (£46.8 million), putting them in the bottom nine of the 48 teams at the 2026 tournament. Argentina, by comparison, boast a squad valued at €807.5 million (£693.7 million), the seventh most valuable squad in the tournament, with only 16-time winners France ranking higher. When comparing projected starting lineups, Argentina’s first XI carries a combined value of £360.3 million – more than 18 times the £19.77 million total value of Cape Verde’s entire matchday squad. Five individual Argentine players are each worth more than the entirety of the Cape Verde squad, with Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez the nation’s most valuable player at £77.4 million.

    Beyond market value, the gulf in silverware is just as stark. Sixteen members of Argentina’s current squad are already World Cup winners, with countless domestic and continental titles across Europe’s top leagues between them. For Cape Verde, most of their players’ title success has come in lower-tier European leagues or smaller national competitions, with the highest profile honors being Jovane Cabral’s 2020-21 Portuguese league title with Sporting CP and Kevin Pina’s 2024-25 Russian Premier League title with Krasnodar.

    Even off the pitch, the gap between the two nations is almost impossible to overstate. Cape Verde is a 10-island archipelago in the central Atlantic, 450 kilometers off the west coast of Africa, with a total land area of just 4,033 square kilometers and a population of roughly 530,000 – smaller than the population of every U.S. state. It is the third-smallest nation ever to qualify for a World Cup, and now holds the record for the smallest nation to ever reach the knockout rounds, breaking a 68-year record held by Northern Ireland. Argentina, by contrast, is the eighth largest country in the world by area, with a population of 46 million and a GDP of $683 billion, compared to Cape Verde’s $3 billion GDP.

    For all the lopsided statistics on paper, though, Cape Verde has already defied every expectation placed on them at this tournament. Friday’s clash will not just be a game between the world champion and the debutant underdog: it will be a chance for the Blue Shores to write another shocking new chapter in World Cup history, with Vozinha set to take center stage against the greatest player of his generation. Football fans around the world will be tuning in to see if the ultimate underdogs can pull off one more upset.

  • UN human rights chief sounds ‘red alert’ over violence around Sudan’s el-Obeid city

    UN human rights chief sounds ‘red alert’ over violence around Sudan’s el-Obeid city

    GENEVA — The United Nations’ top human rights official has issued an urgent “red alert” warning the global community of a looming humanitarian catastrophe in and around the strategic central Sudanese city of el-Obeid, where fighting between Sudan’s national army and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has pushed half a million trapped civilians to the brink of mass atrocity crimes.

    Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk emphasized that warning signs of an unfolding human rights disaster in el-Obeid are unambiguous. His urgent call to action came as the 47-member UN human rights body convened an emergency debate to address rising diplomatic and advocacy group concerns over a potential new wave of civilian harm in Sudan’s 2-year-long civil conflict.

    “This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world,” Türk stressed. He added that global leaders must prioritize urgent diplomatic action in the coming weeks, stepping up engagement to prevent mass atrocities across el-Obeid and other at-risk regions of Kordofan.

    Türk detailed the catastrophic conditions facing el-Obeid’s civilian population, who have endured 18 months of siege-like conditions amid relentless drone strikes as the two warring factions battle for control of key territory surrounding the city. In February 2025, Sudan’s national military broke an RSF siege of el-Obeid that had stood for more than a year, but the paramilitary group has since launched repeated multi-pronged offensives to reimpose the blockade. Recent RSF attacks on critical infrastructure have left residents facing catastrophic shortages of food, clean water, fuel, medical care and public transportation, according to updates from Türk’s office.

    The UN Human Rights Council was weighing a draft resolution put forward by Britain, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway during the urgent debate. The draft singles out the RSF and its affiliated forces for condemnation over escalating violence in and around el-Obeid, calls for expanded financial and logistical support for neighboring nations hosting Sudanese refugees, and denounces all forms of external interference in the Sudanese conflict, among other provisions.

    Sudan’s civil war first erupted in April 2023, rooted in decades of festering tensions between the country’s formal military leadership and the RSF paramilitary group. The conflict has already left at least 59,000 people dead, displaced more than 13 million Sudanese from their homes, and pushed vast swathes of the country into catastrophic famine conditions. UN data estimates that more than 30 million Sudanese currently require life-saving humanitarian assistance to survive.

  • Mahrez retires from Algeria duty after World Cup exit

    Mahrez retires from Algeria duty after World Cup exit

    One of the most decorated figures in Algerian football history has closed the book on his 12-year national team career. Riyad Mahrez, the long-serving captain of Algeria’s men’s national side, has formally announced his retirement from international football, just hours after his team crashed out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup with a 2-0 round of 32 defeat to Switzerland in Vancouver.

    At 35 years old, the winger made the confirmation directly to reporters following the final whistle, bringing an end to a storied international career that included 120 senior appearances and 40 goals for the North African side, nicknamed the Desert Foxes. Reflecting on the match that marked his final outing, Mahrez acknowledged that uncharacteristic errors cost his side a result they believed was well within their grasp. “The goal was to progress, and I think it was a game that was within our reach,” Mahrez said. “We conceded two goals on mistakes, and at this level, we pay dearly for that.” When pressed on whether the Vancouver clash would be his last World Cup appearance, he made his retirement clear: “It’s my last appearance even with the national team. It was my last game.”

    Mahrez leaves international football as one of the most statistically accomplished players in Algeria’s men’s football history. His 120 caps rank him second on the nation’s all-time appearance list, only three behind his current national team teammate Aissa Mandi, who has 123. On the scoring charts, his 40 international goals also place him second, just nine goals behind Islam Slimani’s all-time record of 49.

    The high point of Mahrez’s captaincy came at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, where he led Algeria to their first continental title in nearly three decades. His performance in that tournament remains one of the most iconic moments in Algerian sport: he scored a dramatic stoppage-time free-kick to defeat Nigeria in the semi-final, before the side overcame Senegal in the final to lift the trophy. It stands as the crowning achievement of his international career.

    Even in his final World Cup campaign, Mahrez turned in a record-breaking performance for Algeria. This tournament marked his most productive World Cup outing ever, with three direct goal contributions across four matches: two goals against Austria and one assist against Jordan. No other Algerian player has ever notched more goal involvements in a single World Cup edition. He also earned a place in the history books as the second-oldest African player to ever start a World Cup knockout stage match, with only Senegal’s Idrissa Gueye recording an older starting appearance earlier in this same tournament.

    Born and raised in France, Mahrez made the decision to represent his ancestral Algeria at the international level back in 2013. He earned his first senior cap for the side in early 2014, just ahead of that year’s World Cup in Brazil, where he helped Algeria reach the round of 16. Over the following 12 years, he cemented his status as one of the greatest footballers to ever wear the Algerian national jersey, becoming one of just a small group of Algerian players to hit the 100-cap milestone for his country. Off the international pitch, Mahrez also built a legendary club career in the English Premier League, winning a league title with Leicester City in 2016 before claiming multiple domestic and European honours during a spell at Manchester City. He currently plays for Saudi Pro League side Al-Ahli.