Spain arrives in Atlanta with the air of a team expecting a long World Cup summer, but on Monday it will face an opponent with an equally powerful feeling: the giddy disbelief of a country seeing its name on the tournament board for the first time.
The European champions open their Group H campaign against Cape Verde, with Uruguay and Saudi Arabia also in the section, in a match that on paper looks like a meeting of different football planets.
Luis de la Fuente’s side have become virtually unshakable over the past four years, going 30 games unbeaten since a 0-1 friendly defeat to Colombia at Wembley in March 2024. Since then, Spain have recorded 23 wins and seven draws.
However, Cape Verde is not only located in North America to provide 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 Curaçao, also in 2026.
Their emergence is conjoined from an archipelago and a diaspora. That combination proved very effective in qualifying, where Cape Verde won seven of ten matches, losing just once and claiming a stunning home victory over Cameroon.
The World Cup location may feel like a fairy tale, but Cape Verde has been building credibility for years. In 2013, it qualified for the first Africa Cup of Nations, reaching the quarter-finals at the first attempt.
For Spain, the aim is a second World Cup title after their 2010 victory in South Africa. For Cape Verde, Monday offers something even rarer: the first page of a story their supporters have been waiting to read for generations.
Published on June 15, 2026
