KUCHING: Long after the final whistle brought Cape Verde’s FIFA World Cup debut to an end, the tournament continues to give back.
This time, it is Sidny Lopes Cabral’s unforgettable strike against Argentina, which FIFA has officially named the Goal of the Tournament following a public vote.
For a nation that arrived at the World Cup as one of its biggest unknowns, the award is another reminder of how Cape Verde won over football fans despite bowing out in the Round of 32. Their fearless debut produced moments that lingered well beyond the tournament itself, none more memorable than Lopes Cabral’s stunning curling effort into the top corner to draw Cape Verde level at 2–2 against defending champions Argentina in extra time.
Although Argentina eventually edged the thriller 3–2, the goal has now earned football’s highest individual honour of the tournament, finishing ahead of Uzbekistan’s Eldor Shomurodov, whose delicate lob against Congo DR placed second, and Haiti’s Wilson Isidor, whose powerful rising strike against Morocco finished third after topping FIFA’s 12-goal public vote.
The goal was only half the story.
Moments after finding the net, Lopes Cabral slipped away from celebrating teammates and climbed into the stands in search of the two people he had promised to celebrate with before kick-off – his mother and girlfriend.
“Before the game, I’d told my mom and my girlfriend that if I scored, I’d run over to them,” he recalled.
“When I got there, I saw my mom crying. She hadn’t even realised I was right there. Everyone was busy tending to her because she had fainted when I scored.”
The emotional celebration became one of the defining images of the World Cup, just as Cape Verde became one of its defining stories.
