Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Cape Verde team beat Eswatini 2-0 this Tuesday at the Mbombela Stadium, in Nelspruit, South Africa, in a game counting for the second round of Group D, of the African qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup.
The match started almost an hour and a half late due to a strong storm in the city located in the northeast region of South Africa, at an altitude of 619 meters.
As for the game, which would be played on a very heavy and slippery pitch, Cape Verde opened the scoring in the 17th minute through Ryan Mendes, who headed a corner kick scored by Garry Rodrigues.
The 2-0 came in the 38th minute by Jamiro Monteiro, who finished from close range after Ryan Mendes’ cross, in a move that was somewhat careless and disruptive to the opposing defense.
In the second half, the first 15 minutes were painful for the national team and with Eswatini, twice, close to reducing and on one of the occasions it was worth a great save by goalkeeper Vozinha.
To counter the trend of the game, Bubista made three one-off substitutions with Hélio Varela, Kuka and Deroy Duarte replacing Garry Rodrigues, Patrick Andrade and Kenny Rocha.
Even so, Eswatini continued to dominate the game, taking advantage of the mistakes of Cape Verdean players who missed a lot of passes and demonstrated a lack of physical freshness.
In the 70th minute, in the most spectacular moment of the game, midfielder Dlalimi, with a long shot, took the ball to Vozinha’s goal post, who saw the ball pass in front of the goal and go out to the bottom line.
The game ended with a triumph for Cape Verde, which was worth the excellent first half and some of the luck and misfortune of the Eswatini team, who, based on what they did in the regulation stage, deserved to leave this match with at least a draw.
After this victory, Cape Verde now has four points and awaits the results of the other games in the group, with Cameroon (three points) facing Libya (three points), in Tripoli, and Mauritius (zero points) receiving to Angola (one point).
The final phase of the 2026 World Cup will be played from June 8th to July 19th, 2026 in Canada, the United States of America and Mexico, and will feature, for the first time, 48 teams, nine from the African continent, an increase of four more teams compared to the last World Cup.
The 54 African countries, according to the new regulations, were divided into nine groups of six teams (groups A to I) and the winners of each group automatically qualify for the 2026 World Cup.
The four best runners-up will compete in a ‘final-four’ where the team that will represent Africa in an intercontinental playoff will be decided, which could increase the number of African countries in the World Cup to ten. The Week with Inforpress.
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