Cape Verde coach Bubista felt huge pride in his team after they took three-times world champions Argentina to the wire before losing a thrilling last-32 clash at the World Cup on Friday.<\/p>\n
The 67th-ranked Africans have been the surprise package of their first global finals, drawing with former champions Spain and Uruguay in the group phase before going down 3-2 after extra time against the title holders.<\/p>\n
Former centre half Bubista was the architect of the project and he thought the reaction to the loss by his players, most of whom do not play in elite leagues, showed how far they had come.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feeling in the dressing room is one of sadness,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re sad, of course, we\u2019re sad because we\u2019re leaving the competition and because we got so close, so close.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though they are sad, the players were hugging each other, they were crying. This is part of growing. This helps us grow, and also shows that the team has a soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bubista said that Cape Verde staying in the match for the full 120 minutes against a great team on Friday was a huge source of pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pride in my players, and what they did. They did it with dignity and courage,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Argentina showed why they are world champions. I think I can say our team showed how willing they were to play this match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think any other team could have scored two goals against Argentina and taken the match into extra time. I think that shows the character of our team, how skilled our team is.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did it with bravery and never did we lose our identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bubista said throughout the tournament that Cape Verde\u2019s first World Cup campaign was not just about football but also about the spirit of the island-nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore so than just playing this was about showing the world our identity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOurs was a team that throughout the entire tournament, for as long as we were here, we wanted to play and we wanted to play against the best teams in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played fairly and we stayed on a level playing field with our opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone should thank the players for their tournament, because they showed what our small country is about.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":38796,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-38795","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Bubista said that Cape Verde staying in the match for the full 120 minutes against a great team on Friday was a huge source of pride.","published_date":"","news_description":"Bubista said that Cape Verde staying in the match for the full 120 minutes against a great team on Friday was a huge source of pride.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38797,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38795\/revisions\/38797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}