MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Here's something that very few could have reasonably expected coming into this World Cup: Cape Verde controls its own destiny with one match left in group play.
That's right. With a win on Friday against Saudi Arabia, the tiny nation of about 500,000 people and about 15 million new Instagram followers will be headed to the round of 32. Even a draw might be — should be — enough to earn a spot in the knockout round.
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Cape Verde players celebrate after the World Cup Group H soccer match against Uruguay in Miami Gardens, Fla., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Cape Verde fans react following the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde in Miami Gardens, Fla., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Cape Verde supporters celebrate after they watched the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde at a restaurant at a Cape Verde community in Brockton, Mass. near Boston, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Cape Verde's Diney Borges (3) and Uruguay's Brian Rodriguez (18) battle for the ball during the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde in Miami Gardens, Fla., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Cape Verde supporters celebrate their side's second goal as they watch the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde at a restaurant at a Cape Verde community in Brockton, Mass. near Boston, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
The Blue Sharks were long shots entering the World Cup; some books had them at no better than 12% to advance from the group stage. They're currently favored to move on.
“It's in our hands,” defender Roberto Lopes said. “We have to go and take it.”
A pair of draws — first against Spain to begin group play, then rallying for a 2-2 result against Uruguay on Sunday — has Cape Verde still searching for its first win in its initial World Cup appearance. Still, the team is in an ideal position.
Spain leads Group H with four points. Uruguay and Cape Verde are next with two points each, while Saudi Arabia is last with one point. The top two teams from each group advance to the round of 32 along with the top eight third-place teams in the 12 groups.
A win over Saudi Arabia by Cape Verde would give it five points; it would then be mathematically certain to be no worse than second in the group. A draw would give the team three points; that, combined with a Spain win over Uruguay, would also assure a second-place finish in group play.
“One game at a time,” Cape Verde backup goalkeeper CJ dos Santos said. “This is just another challenge for us.”
There is a real chance that if Cape Verde beats Saudi Arabia, its reward would be a round of 32 game against Lionel Messi and defending World Cup champion Argentina.
And the interest in that game would be overwhelming, if it happened. On one side, there would be Messi, the biggest draw in the sport and possibly the biggest draw right now in any sport. On the other, there would be a team that the world seems to have adopted — the improbable story, replete with a 40-year-old goalkeeper whose mother needed help just to obtain a visa and fly to the U.S. to watch her son play on soccer's grandest stage.
More than half of the team was born somewhere other than Cape Verde; Kevin Pina, who scored against Uruguay, spent part of his youth living in Massachusetts, which has the largest concentration of the Cape Verdean diaspora in the U.S.
That stems from how in the 1800s, Cape Verdeans found work on American whaling vessels in the Atlantic and eventually settled in port cities in states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
“We come from a country of immigrants,” Cape Verde coach Bubista said. “We want every child and every young person to feel proud to represent their country. We want our success to make them want to represent Cape Verde.”
At Luanda Restaurant in Brockton, Massachusetts, Cape Verde’s first World Cup match became an afternoon of nervous cheering as customers gathered around televisions; some fans even brought laptops so they could work remotely from the restaurant without missing the game against Spain.
Every save by 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha — whose stardom has risen immeasurably during this tournament — drew louder reactions inside the restaurant. Owner Amélia Goncalves said she tried to work while screaming, laughing and nearly crying, noting that Vozinha's story resonates with the Cape Verdean community.
“If you work hard, it's possible,” Goncalves said.
The team has worked hard. The round of 32 is very possible now. A tiny country with big hopes is poised for its biggest sports moment.
“Now nobody can ask, ‘Where is Cape Verde?’” said 22-year-old Micaelle Nunes, one of the soccer revelers in Brockton. “The whole world will know.”
The players are aware of the celebrations. They know that, in some ways, they have become a sentimental favorite all over the globe. Their story is easy to appreciate and the way they play has drawn applause even from fans in opposing jerseys.
A 12% chance is on the brink of coming through.
“We had a big journey here,” Lopes said. “Now that we're here, we can't change.”
Associated Press writer Leah Willingham in Brockton, Massachusetts, and Zach Pascuzzi in Miami Gardens, Florida, contributed to this story. Pascuzzi is a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/FIFA-World-Cup
Cape Verde players celebrate after the World Cup Group H soccer match against Uruguay in Miami Gardens, Fla., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Cape Verde fans react following the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde in Miami Gardens, Fla., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Cape Verde supporters celebrate after they watched the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde at a restaurant at a Cape Verde community in Brockton, Mass. near Boston, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Cape Verde's Diney Borges (3) and Uruguay's Brian Rodriguez (18) battle for the ball during the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde in Miami Gardens, Fla., Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Cape Verde supporters celebrate their side's second goal as they watch the World Cup Group H soccer match between Uruguay and Cape Verde at a restaurant at a Cape Verde community in Brockton, Mass. near Boston, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — The bodies of a Texas chiropractor and at least one other person have been found after a major flash flood swept through the Grand Canyon, and officials said Monday that one person remains unaccounted for after about 80 others were rescued over the weekend.
Saturday’s flash flood severely damaged the only water pipeline into the canyon. Officials barred tourists from staying at lodges and hotels inside Grand Canyon National Park and issued emergency water restrictions for year-round residents. Waves of torrential rain had hit the Bright Angel Creek area of the tourist destination that hosts 4.4 million visitors a year.
Grand Canyon Deputy Superintendent Brian Drapeaux said officials anticipate “miles of the pipeline being destroyed,” but a full accounting of the devastation won't be completed until Tuesday at the earliest.
Incident Cmdr. Dave Black said searchers used night vision and other equipment to find people who needed rescuing during the deluge. By sunset on Saturday, 45 people were rescued, and 37 more were evacuated on Sunday.
Rangers referred to the the park’s permit system and checked vehicle license plates to track the number of missing people.
“As of right now, they have no reason to believe, from the tips we’ve been through so far, that there’s anybody besides the one” missing person, Black said during a news conference Monday evening.
The flood happened deep in the canyon near where the Colorado River flows, around popular lodges and camping areas where people hiking from one rim of the Grand Canyon to the other stop for the night.
Scores of visitors had to be evacuated from the area by helicopter. They talked of a massive deluge and rangers warning of rockslides, and saw huge pools of logs and debris rolling down the river as they stood nearby awaiting rescue.
Hiker Daniel Evans said it rained several times before the worst 30-minute downpour Saturday afternoon. He had been planning to rest through the hot day and spend the night near the hard-hit Bright Angel campground area.
Earlier, rangers told him it looked to be safe. Then, as the rain poured, they told him it was time to go. He thought of Nepal and the massive floods and landslides that poured down mountain valleys last week.
“The entire time it was raining — the entire time I’m going through all this and packing — I’m just keeping my eyes upstream, just praying that a wall of water isn’t coming toward us,” Evans said.
The family of John Giusti, 53, said the Texas chiropractor set out Thursday on a trip he dreamed of with two buddies — Texas martial arts studio owner Brent Rosenkranz, 42, and Wyoming pilot Timothy Smith, 53. They planned to spend two nights at the bottom of the canyon fishing and hiking.
They spoke to their families Thursday and found their campsite Friday. They have not been heard from since, the three families said in a joint statement released Monday.
All three men had ties to Granbury, Texas. Their families said they planned “several days of hiking, camping, fishing and exploring together.”
Park officials said they recovered the body of a 46-year-old man Sunday evening near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River and were trying to recover a second body. Their email provided no other details.
Late Monday morning, more rain fell as the state Department of Emergency and Military Affairs was coordinating with the park service and county emergency management officials in search and recovery efforts.
Visiting the Grand Canyon can be particularly dangerous in the summer because of the risk of flash flooding that accompanies the monsoon, or rainy season. Clear days can quickly give way to thunderstorms and downpours. Forecasters warned more flooding could happen Monday or just about any time storms pop up.
Rain also fell on part of the Dragon Bravo fire scar, a burn area left by a lightning-caused wildfire in July 2025. It burned for days before exploding into a fast-moving conflagration that forced evacuations and consumed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, some cabins and other structures.
Without vegetation, a barren burn scar allows runoff to flow more quickly.
The steep, rocky nature of the canyon itself funnels water rapidly. What might be a normal summer downpour somewhere else can become a charging wall of water in the canyon.
This year's heavy monsoon rains are especially intense because there is a higher amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, mostly because of a strong El Nino, said A. Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The natural warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean can warp weather globally. That extra water vapor in the southwest U.S. gets wrung out in the storm in the form of rainfall, he said.
The link to human-caused climate change and the heavy Arizona rain is pretty strong, said climate scientist Daniel Swain of the California Institute for Water Resources.
A few months ago, Swain and colleagues published a study in the journal Weather and Climate Extremes finding that during the summer, short-term intense downpours in the West — akin to the one that hit the Grand Canyon — have become 10% stronger since 2000.
The flood was a major blow to an enduring effort to modernize the water pipeline that serves visitors and the roughly 1,600 residents of Grand Canyon Village.
A $208 million rehabilitation of the pipeline and upgrades to the associated water delivery system started in 2023, with the park service calling it a crucial investment to ensure the park can meet the needs of residents and visitors. The project was expected to be completed next year.
While the Grand Canyon has large storage tanks for potable water on the South Rim, they won’t be refilled while the pipeline is out of service.
Stengle reported from Dallas. Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Utah; Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland; Julie Walker in New York City, Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.
Bright Angel Canyon, damaged by flash floods, runs into the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Tourists check out of the El Tovar Hotel as lodging along the rim of the canyon was shut down due to flooding, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026 at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/Josh Biggs)
Buildings are seen in a flood damaged Bright Angel Canyon the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Tourists look down into the Grand Canyon off of the south rim, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026 at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/Josh Biggs)
Tourists check out of the El Tovar Hotel as lodging along the rim of the canyon was shut down due to flooding, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026 at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/Josh Biggs)
Bright Angel Canyon, bottom left, the scene of flash floods, merges into the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bright Angel Canyon, the scene of flash floods, runs into the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bright Angel Canyon, the scene of flash floods, center right, merges with the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bright Angel Canyon, middle left, the scene of flash floods, meets with the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (AP Photo/John Locher)
This photo shows Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, after it was hit by heavy flooding a day earlier. (Craig Sanderson via AP)
This photo shows Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, after it was hit by heavy flooding a day earlier. (Craig Sanderson via AP)
Bright Angel Creek near the Phantom Ranger Station in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, is seen after flash flooding from storms, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (Parth Desai via AP)
