Cape Verde Islands 0-0 Saudi Arabia: FIFA World Cup Match Report

Cape Verde Islands 0-0 Saudi Arabia, goalless at half-time and goalless at the end, and one of these two sides walked out of it into second place in a group containing the eventual world champions.

Cape Verde came into the final round of Group H on two points, from a goalless draw with Spain and a 2-2 draw with Uruguay. Saudi Arabia came in on one, from a 1-1 draw with Uruguay and a 4-0 defeat to Spain. The equation was simple: a win for either would almost certainly settle second place, while a draw left the matter to whatever Spain did against Uruguay on the same night.

The character of the ninety minutes is legible from the two scores available. Nothing before the interval, nothing after it, between two teams who had produced three goals between them across five previous group matches. Cape Verde finished with two scored and two conceded from three games without losing any of them; Saudi Arabia with one scored and five conceded.

Spain beat Uruguay 1-0 on the same matchday, which meant the point taken here was enough. Cape Verde finished second in Group H on three points, having drawn all three of their matches — never winning, never losing, and never conceding more than twice in total.

That is a rare way out of a World Cup group: three draws, two goals scored, two conceded, and a qualifying place behind a Spain side that did not concede at all across the group and went on to win the tournament. Saudi Arabia and Uruguay were left level on two points and eliminated, Uruguay having been seeded well above the pair of teams who played this match. The point Saudi Arabia took here and the one from their opening draw with Uruguay were their entire return from the tournament.

Our pre-match call was Double Chance 1X (Cape Verde Islands or Draw) at 1.42. It landed on the draw, and unusually for a hedge of this shape the draw was arguably the single most likely outcome from the moment the fixture list was set — two low-scoring sides, a match in which a point had real value to at least one of them, and no obvious source of goals on either side of the halfway line.

The criticism is of the price rather than the pick. At 1.42, a double chance on the nominal home team in a fixture that finished 0-0 between sides with a combined three goals in five prior matches was not a generous quote. It was still correct, and correct for the reason we gave: this was always likelier to be decided by attrition than by anything decisive.

Verdict: won