Lamine Yamal, one of the most exciting youngsters in world football at the moment, will be one of the players to watch out for when Spain takes on Cape Verde. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Spain arrives in Atlanta with the air of a team expecting a long World Cup summer, but on ​Monday, it faces opponent carrying an equally powerful feeling: the giddy disbelief of ‌a nation seeing its name on the tournament board ​for the first time.

The European champion opens its ⁠Group H campaign against Cape Verde, with Uruguay and Saudi Arabia also in the section, in a fixture that looks on paper like a meeting of ‌different football planets.

Luis de la Fuente’s side has become close to immovable over the last four years, going 30 ‌matches unbeaten since a 0-1 friendly loss to Colombia at ‌Wembley ⁠in March 2024. Since then, Spain has recorded 23 wins ⁠and seven draws.

Cape Verde, however, is not merely in North ‌America to provide the romance.

The Blue Sharks were one ​of the surprise qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup and, with fewer than 600,000 inhabitants, are the third ⁠smallest country by population to reach the tournament after Iceland in 2018 and Curacao, also in 2026.

Their rise has been stitched together from an ‌archipelago and a diaspora. That blend proved highly effective in qualifying, where Cape Verde won seven of its 10 games, lost only once and claimed a stunning home victory over Cameroon.

Its World Cup place may feel like a fairy tale, but Cape Verde has been building credibility for years. In 2013, it qualified for its first ‌Africa Cup of Nations and reached the quarterfinals at the first attempt.

For Spain, the target is a second World Cup ‌title after their 2010 triumph in South Africa. For Cape Verde, Monday offers something rarer still: the first page of a ​story their supporters have waited generations to read.

Published on Jun 15, 2026