Friday marked the final match day at the 2026 FIFA World Cup with at least three matches. It got a proper sendoff with one of the matches of the tournament so far between Argentina and Cape Verde, and a historic result for Mohamed Salah and Egypt.<\/p>\n
Here is everything you might have missed on Day 23 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup:<\/p>\n
BEST OF THE DAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Argentina and Cape Verde’s World Cup resumes could not have been more different entering Friday’s match.<\/p>\n Argentina is hoping to win its second consecutive World Cup and fourth all-time, while Cape Verde is competing in the tournament for the first time ever. Argentina is ranked second in the world by FIFA; Cape Verde is ranked 64th. Argentina’s face is Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest player of all time; Cape Verde’s face is Vozinha, a 40-year-old goalkeeper who played for Portuguese second division side GD Chaves last season.<\/p>\n When the whistle blew and the ball kicked off, none of that mattered, resulting in the game of the tournament so far.<\/p>\n Left back<\/p>\n Cape Verde<\/p>\n Cape Verde needed a miracle to upset mighty Argentina. While it didn’t get the win, it got its miracle in Sidney Lopes Cabral’s extra-time equalizer. Cabral, from an impossible angle on the left edge of the penalty box, struck the ball with his right foot and curled it into the top right corner of Argentina’s goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n If the World Cup ended today, it would be the goal of the tournament.<\/p>\n Center back<\/p>\n Argentina<\/p>\n Lisandro Mart\u00ednez earned his wages in Argentina’s hard-fought win vs. Cape Verde. Not only did Mart\u00ednez score the goal that gave Argentina the lead to start extra time, but he created the opportunity for Messi’s goal with a brilliant ball from the back line. Messi did the rest, as he’s known to do.<\/p>\n Goalkeeper<\/p>\n Cape Verde<\/p>\n Three goalkeepers in World Cup history have recorded two clean sheets at the age of 40 or older: England legend Peter Shilton, Italy legend Dino Zoff and now Cape Verde legend Vozinha. The keeper didn’t manage to keep a clean sheet against Argentina, but he did record eight saves, including this one to deny Messi from point-blank range. He leaves the tournament with 25 saves to his name, which leads all goalkeepers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Friday marked the final match day at the 2026 FIFA World Cup with at least three matches. It got a proper sendoff with one of the matches of the tournament so far between Argentina and Cape Verde, and a historic result for Mohamed Salah and Egypt. Here is everything you might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}