New Bedford Went Wild for Cabo Verde’s Historic World Cup Debut

Five minutes left. About 50 people crammed into the Lighthouse Tavern on Brock Avenue, barely breathing. Blue jerseys, scarves, hats, one woman with a Cabo Verdean flag wrapped around her like a skirt. Every Spanish attack brought a collective groan that shook the walls. Every save — and there were many — brought the place to its feet.

Then the final whistle blew. Cabo Verde 0, Spain 0.

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“Three, two, one!” the crowd counted down, then exploded. People hugged strangers. Phones shot up everywhere, calling family in Texas, Dubai, Florida. Out on West Rodney French Boulevard, cars laid on their horns waving blue-and-white flags. This wasn’t just a soccer match. It was the moment — the moment a tiny island nation announced itself to the world, and New Bedford answered back with a roar.

The Match That Stopped New Bedford

June 15, 2026. Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Blue Sharks — Tubarões Azuis — faced a Spanish squad that’s won multiple World Cups and was heavily favored. Nobody gave Cabo Verde a realistic shot. Nobody told Vozinha that.

Josimar José Évora Dias — known simply as Vozinha — is 40 years old. In most sports, that’s retirement age. In this match, he was the entire reason the score stayed at zero. Seven key saves. Seven times he denied Spain. The man was named player of the match, and Fox Sports ranked the result among the biggest upsets in World Cup history.

“That is a freaking upset,” said Dianne Pina, watching with her cousin and sister at the Lighthouse. “That’s like winning the NBA Finals.”

Sterling Pina Barros-Carter, a New Bedford resident, said what everyone in the room was thinking: “They’re going to be contenders now.”

And Adonis Ferreira, who took the whole day off work for this moment, looked at the bigger picture: “They’re going to learn how warm and how beautiful the people of Cabo Verde really are.”

Cabo Verde had already made history just by qualifying. They secured their spot last October by defeating Eswatini to win Africa’s Group D, edging out Cameroon. They’re just the third-smallest country ever to reach the World Cup, behind Iceland and Curaçao (also making their debut in 2026). They hadn’t lost a game since 2024. And now, on their very first World Cup appearance, they held the reigning tournament royalty to a shutout.

In Cabo Verde itself, the government declared a half-day workday so state employees could watch. You don’t do that for a loss. You do that for history.

A President Walks Into a New Bedford Bar

Here’s the part that makes New Bedford’s story even more remarkable: the president of Cabo Verde was here before the match.

President José Maria Neves came to New Bedford last Thursday and walked into Morna Lounge and Grill to address more than 100 people who had packed in to see him. He spoke in Kriolu. He spoke about resilience. He spoke about the World Cup qualification as a political, economic, and cultural victory for a nation that once seemed impossible.

“In 1975, people doubted whether Cabo Verde was even viable,” Neves told the crowd, referring to independence from Portugal. “It was an improbable country. But now we’re victorious. We’re a political victory. An economic victory. A cultural victory.”

And then he looked at this city — our city — and said something that should be on a banner downtown:

“This is also a great Cabo Verdean city. Cabo Verde is not just the 10 islands but all these other ‘islands’ spread throughout the world. We are a global nation. For this reason, we had to visit New Bedford.”

Mayor Jon Mitchell was there. State Rep. António F.D. Cabral was there. At-Large City Councillor Shane Burgo, State Rep. Stephen Ouellette, and Consul General of Cabo Verde Octávio Gomes were all there. When the president of a nation makes a stopover in your city on the way to his team’s first-ever World Cup match — that tells you something about what New Bedford means.

Darlene Spencer, president of the Cape Verdean Association of New Bedford, summed it up: “I feel he’s such a great orator. He’s more than a politician just saying things. He has compassion for the community.”

Neves also promised to celebrate the 55th anniversary of Cabo Verdean independence at the under-construction Cape Verdean Cultural Center in the North End when it opens — projected for 2027. Spencer was thrilled. We all should be.

New Bedford’s Deep Cabo Verdean Roots

None of this is an accident. New Bedford’s bond with Cabo Verde goes back to the 18th century, when Cabo Verdean sailors came here on whaling ships and built lives that lasted generations. About 70,000 Cabo Verdeans live in Massachusetts today — the largest U.S. concentration — and a huge portion of them are right here on the South Coast, according to the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Meanwhile, the islands of Cabo Verde itself are home to only about 525,000 people — but the diaspora, scattered across Portugal, the Netherlands, the U.S., and beyond, numbers around 1 million. The Blue Sharks reflect that reality too: the team is made up of players from Ireland, the Netherlands, and across the globe. As President Neves put it, “The Tubarões Azuis are an expression of a transnational Cabo Verde.”

José Monteiro, a New Bedford resident who originally hails from Cabo Verde and came to the U.S. in 1978, traveled all the way to Atlanta to see the match in person. He’s hoping the World Cup exposure creates something lasting.

“With Cabo Verde being in the World Cup, it allows some of the better players that play abroad to say, ‘Maybe I don’t need to go play abroad,'” Monteiro said. “‘I can come and play for my country.’ And that would be the biggest outcome.”

That’s the long game. That’s what this moment means beyond the scoreline.

If you want to understand the depth of this community’s connection to those islands, check out our coverage of what’s happening in the SouthCoast this weekend — the Cabo Verde matches are front and center in community plans. And for more on South Coast stories that go beyond the headlines, explore our South Coast news coverage — because this community deserves the same attention on the hard days as on the triumphant ones.

What’s Next for the Blue Sharks

The draw with Spain wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.

Cabo Verde plays Uruguay on Sunday, June 21 in Miami. Then they face Saudi Arabia on Friday, June 26 in Houston. Three games. Three chances to write more history. Advancing from Group H would be one of the great stories in World Cup history — but just being there, playing at this level, matching Spain for 90 minutes? That already is.

The Blue Sharks qualified nearly 51 years after gaining independence from Portugal in July 1975. Three years after independence, the national soccer team was founded. Now they’re on the world’s biggest stage, and they showed up like they belonged there.

Back at the Lighthouse Tavern, after the celebrations settled and the phones went back in pockets, people talked about what comes next. Some wondered aloud whether Vozinha — a 40-year-old man who just went viral globally — might get recruited by clubs around the world. That’s the kind of problem you want to have.

For the rest of us, the South Coast faithful who’ve supported this community for generations, the assignment is simple: find a watch party for June 21. Show up in blue. Make noise. This is our community’s moment on the world stage, and we should be right there with them.

Cabo Verde made it. New Bedford showed up. The Blue Sharks aren’t done yet.

Read the full coverage from The New Bedford Light:

• Cabo Verde’s World Cup debut thrills crowd at New Bedford watch party
• Cabo Verde president visits New Bedford on way to World Cup match

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