US drivers may have to wait until 2027 for gasoline prices to fall below 79 cents per litre, according to Patrick De Haan, Head of Petroleum Analysis at GasBuddy. He says global oil inventories could take more than a year to recover from disruptions linked to the war on Iran.
Published On 17 Jun 202617 Jun 2026
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The 2026 World Cup will have 13 different kickoff times. You can use the Al Jazeera Sport widget to find out exactly when your team is playing in your local time.
Who: England vs Croatia
What: FIFA World Cup 2026 Group L match
Where: AT&T Stadium, Dallas, Texas
When: Wednesday, 3pm local time (20:00 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 17:00 GMT in advance of our live text commentary stream.
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Chants of “It’s Coming Home” will ring around parts of England on Wednesday as the European heavyweights begin their 2026 World Cup title bid with a test against familiar foes, Croatia.
It has been 60 years since England were last crowned world champions, but they are genuine contenders for the title this year.
While coach Thomas Tuchel’s squad selection divided fan opinion in the run-up to their journey to North America, bookmakers still believe this crop of English talent, headlined by Harry Kane, can achieve a deep run in the tournament.
Their first hurdle, though, is a challenging one.
Once labelled underdogs, Croatia have grown into one of international football’s most consistent tournament performers, finishing as World Cup runners-up in 2018 and earning third place at the last edition, in 2022, as well as 1998.
Their 40-year-old captain Luka Modric may well be heading into his last tournament, but he remains the heartbeat of the team, and as has been the case for years, Croatia pose a threat under his leadership.
Al Jazeera tells you everything you need to know about England vs Croatia:
After a string of near-misses at recent European Championships and World Cups, England head into the 2026 tournament chasing their first world title since 1966.
They are led by captain Kane, who has arrived in North America in some of the best form of his career, and fresh off the high of lifting his second Bundesliga title with Bayern Munich.
“For sure, it’s one of the best opportunities we will have as a team to win it,” Kane told reporters, talking about England’s odds of winning the tournament.
“I think everyone is eager to just start well and prove that we have the capabilities of going far in this tournament.”
The 32-year-old has urged his team, who had a 100 percent record in the qualifiers, to “go for it” and be “free in the mind” when they launch their World Cup title charge in Texas.
Tuchel, too, knows the expectations from fans are high, with England among the top contenders in the 48-team tournament.
Their best run in recent times has been reaching the semifinals in 2018, while their last campaign ended in the quarterfinals in 2022 – both under former manager Gareth Southgate.
“We have a right to dream, but we don’t want to be delusional,” Tuchel has said.
Croatia’s head coach Zlatko Dalic has warned his team to be wary of goal-scoring machine Kane, who netted a whopping 61 times in 51 matches in all competitions for Bayern Munich last season.
“They have the best striker in the world, they have Kane, and Kane can do a hell of a lot,” said Dalic. “We will do a lot, we will do our best not only to defend ourselves but to attack, to go forward.
“There will be set pieces, which will be quite difficult, but we are prepared for that. I expect a great game, and it will be great preparation for the next two games in the group.”
Just as Kane is central to England’s hopes of a deep run, veteran Modric is crucial to Croatia’s World Cup dreams. After playing a key role in Croatia’s previous World Cup campaigns, Modric is set for his fifth and possibly final appearance.
The ageing midfielder, also the Balkan nation’s captain, still enjoys a hero’s status among a side that has often defied expectations on the global stage. And by Dalic’s own admission, the team still relies heavily on him, not least for his playmaking prowess.
“He means a lot, both as a captain of our team and as a person,” Dalic said of Modric, ahead of his 199th appearance for the team.
“He is my right hand on the pitch.
“It means a lot to the team that we have a couple of older players alongside Luka who are leading the younger players, and they can do very good things,” Dalic added.
“They are very lucky to have him, Luka, as a role model in how to fight for the national team jersey, and we’re lucky to still have him with us.”
Stats provider Opta’s supercomputer has handed England a 55.9 percent probability of winning against Croatia, who have a 20.8 percent chance of winning. There is a 23.3 percent probability of a draw.
Overall, England are fourth in the list of title favourites – with a 10.02 percent probability – behind Spain, France and Argentina.
In the United Kingdom, England vs Croatia kicks off at 9pm BST and will be shown on STV, STV Player, ITV1 and ITVX.
For fans in Croatia, the match is scheduled for 10pm and will be shown on HRT.
In the United States, viewers can tune into FOX One, Telemundo App, Telemundo Network, FOX and Peacock.
To check the TV listings for your country, head to FIFA’s TV listing schedule here.
England, Croatia, Ghana and Panama are in Group L.
The top two teams from each of the 12 groups – along with the eight best third-placed teams – proceed to the next phase, the round of 32, which has been introduced at the World Cup for the first time.
(Last five games, latest first)
England: W-W-L-D-W
Croatia: W-L-L-W-W
England have a slightly better record than Croatia in their last five matches. Both teams have won three games each, but England lost and drew the other two, while Croatia suffered defeats in both games.
England won against Costa Rica and New Zealand in pre-World Cup friendlies earlier this month, but lost to Japan in an unexpected result in late March. Before that, they drew with Uruguay in a friendly and beat Albania in a World Cup qualifier.
Croatia won against Slovakia but fell to Belgium in their World Cup warm-up matches, while also losing to Brazil in a friendly in late March. But before that, they beat Colombia in a friendly and won against Montenegro in a World Cup qualifier.
Wednesday will be the 12th meeting between the two sides, with England holding a big advantage over Croatia in their head-to-head record.
England have won six times against Croatia, who have won three times. Two matches ended in a draw.
They have met at the World Cup three times before, with England losing their last tournament encounter 2-1 at the 2018 World Cup semifinal in Moscow.
On Tuesday, England defender Tino Livramento was ruled out of the tournament after suffering a calf injury and was replaced by Trevoh Chalobah. The Newcastle United right-back sustained the injury during a training session at the team’s Kansas City base on Sunday.
No injury concerns in the Croatia camp.
(4-2-3-1): Pickford; James, Konsa, Guehi, O’Reilly; Anderson, Rice; Saka, Bellingham, Gordon; Kane
(4-2-3-1): Livakovic; Stanisic, Sutalo, Vuskovic, Gvardiol; Modric, Kovacic; Pasalic, Kramaric, Perisic; Budimir
US Department of Justice claims NAACP lawsuit threatens ‘national, economic, and energy security’.
The United States government has intervened on the side of Elon Musk’s xAI in a legal dispute over a $20bn data centre, claiming that efforts to block a related power project threaten national security.
In a court motion filed this week, the Department of Justice requested the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing xAI of illegally operating dozens of natural gas turbines erected to power the Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest civil rights group for African Americans, filed the lawsuit in April under the 1963 Clean Air Act, which allows citizens to seek injunctions and civil penalties against alleged polluters.
The NAACP alleges that xAI built the turbines, located in nearby Southaven, Mississippi, without obtaining the necessary permits, exposing hundreds of thousands of residents to harmful pollutants linked to “increases in asthma, respiratory diseases, heart problems, and certain cancers”.
The lawsuit notes that a “much larger share” of residents are Black compared with the US general population.
In its motion, filed in a US District Court on Monday, the Justice Department accused the NAACP of threatening “national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations”.
The motion also claims that the US Constitution vests the power to seek civil penalties “conclusively and preclusively” in the executive branch, including the “discretion to decide when such an enforcement action is unwarranted or inconsistent with federal enforcement priorities”.
Adam Gustafson, the top prosecutor at the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division, said in a statement that the government would “not sit idly by while private organisations use environmental laws to undermine our national security”.
xAI, which is a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earthjustice, an advocacy group representing the NAACP in the lawsuit, condemned the intervention as a “massive power grab” by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Trump’s Justice Department wants to shield Elon Musk’s data center company, xAI, from being held accountable for its illegal pollution – and it’s attempting to grab power from impacted communities, the courts, and Congress to do so,” Laura Thoms, director of enforcement for Earthjustice, said in a statement.
“There is no moral or legal precedent for this.”
Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at UCLA School of Law, described the Trump administration’s argument as a “brazen attempt” to limit enforcement of the Clean Air Act.
“It’s based on a radical notion that the executive branch can dismiss lawsuits brought by citizen groups that Congress has authorised based on no rationale at all,” Carlson told Al Jazeera, adding that the Justice Department’s position would let “polluters off the hook even for blatant violations of the law.”
“This motion is also just one of many ways in which the administration is undermining efforts to protect air quality,” Carlson said.
The Trump administration has cultivated close ties with Musk, the world’s richest man, tapping the tech titan as a temporary cost-cutting tsar and using xAI’s flagship model Grok in the Pentagon’s drive to become an “AI-enabled fighting force”.
In testimony in support of Monday’s motion, Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s top official for AI, said that Grok had been used to launch more than 2,000 munitions at 2,000 targets within the first 96 hours of the US-Israel war on Iran.
If Grok cannot be deployed and upgraded due to “limitations in energy supply or limited reserve compute capability”, numerous tools used by the Pentagon would be “severely impacted”, Stanley said in a declaration made under oath.
The Manchester City striker scored his first goals at a major international tournament as Norway powered past Iraq.
Published On 17 Jun 202617 Jun 2026
Erling Haaland scored twice in his World Cup debut as Norway powered past Iraq to win 4-1 in their Group I opener in Boston.
The Manchester City striker scored his first goals at a major international tournament on Tuesday as Norway returned to the World Cup for the first time in 28 years.
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Haaland turned in from close range to give Norway the lead on 29 minutes, but Aymen Hussein’s header brought Iraq level.
Haaland then pounced on an error at the back to put Norway ahead again before half-time and take his goal tally at international level to 57 in just 51 matches.
Leo Ostigard headed in a third for Norway moments after coming off the bench to effectively wrap up the victory. Norway then got a fourth deep into stoppage time through a Hussein own goal.
The win left Norway on top of Group I on goal difference, level with France on three points after Les Bleus overcame Senegal 3-1 earlier in the day. The Norwegians face the African powerhouses in their next game in New Jersey on June 22 .
No team has endured a longer or more perilous road to the World Cup than Iraq, who secured their place as the 48th and final qualifiers in March after a 21-match campaign that stretched across 867 days.
Hussein, the scorer of the decisive goal in the play-off win over Bolivia, was held and questioned for hours by US immigration officials after arriving with the squad ahead of Iraq’s first World Cup since 1986.
Norway last played at the tournament in 1998, when coach Stale Solbakken was a member of the squad that famously beat Brazil in the group stage before exiting in the last 16. He also featured at Euro 2000.
After breezing impressively through qualifying, twice thrashing Italy, they are hoping a golden generation of players – led by Haaland and Arsenal midfielder Martin Odegaard – can break new ground in North America.
Solbakken predicted that Haaland would make a “very big impact” at his first major finals, and the Manchester City star was quick to deliver on that promise.
Antonio Nusa’s trickery was a problem for Iraq, and his incisive pass released the overlapping David Moller Wolfe clear before Haaland stretched to steer in the low cross from the left.
Iraq, who lost all of their group games in their only previous appearance, did not let that get to them as they equalised 10 minutes later.
Amir Alammari found space just inside the area and clipped in a cross, with Hussein rising brilliantly to power a header past Orjan Nyland.
But Iraq only had themselves to blame as they gift-wrapped Haaland’s second of the contest.
Goalkeeper Jalal Hassan was slow to react to a softly hit back pass, his attempted clearance smacking off Haaland’s shin and ricocheting into the net.
Iraq again responded well with Ibrahim Bayesh denied by a desperation block, Ali Alhamadi dribbling an effort wide, and centre-back Akam Hashim lashing a spectacular volley just over the bar.
Ostigard nodded in Odegaard’s corner on 76 minutes to seal the points for Norway, before Haaland was thwarted by Hassan when another loose pass sent him clean through and seeking his hat-trick.
Haaland, nonetheless, had a hand in Norway’s late fourth, his looping header back across goal deflecting off Hussein before trickling over the line.
France captain overtakes Giroud with 58 goals for his country and the most for Les Blues at a World Cup.
Published On 17 Jun 202617 Jun 2026
Any doubts about Kylian Mbappe’s status as one of the world’s greatest footballers were laid to rest when he statistically topped the charts with two goals as France beat Senegal 3-1 in their opening game of the World Cup.
The 27-year-old became France’s record scorer on Tuesday, overtaking Olivier Giroud with 58 goals. In a full-circle moment, Giroud, a commentator at Tuesday’s match against Senegal, congratulated Mbappe live on air when he netted again in the 96th minute.
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Mbappe also became France’s top scorer at a World Cup with 14 goals, as well as the youngest ever to reach that number. He eclipsed Just Fontaine’s record of 13 goals, all of which were scored at the 1958 World Cup.
Mbappe sits just two goals behind Miroslav Klose’s World Cup record for most goals scored, another record he could break when France take on Iraq next week in Philadelphia. He sits third on the list, just behind Brazil’s Ronaldo with 15 goals, although he has eclipsed Argentinian icon Lionel Messi with 13 World Cup goals.
Mbappe posted on social media soon after the record-breaking match but did not mention the personal milestones.
“Always important to start with a win. It will be a long road, but we are ready,” he wrote on Instagram.
For his first goal of the 2026 edition, Mbappe darted across the penalty area to convert a brilliant Michael Olise pass on 66 minutes, breaking the deadlock in a contest in which France struggled in the first half but came to life after the break.
Bradley Barcola of Paris Saint-Germain then came off the bench to get the second late on, before his club colleague Ibrahim Mbaye pulled one back in stoppage time for Senegal.
But Mbappe saved the best for last, as he blasted in from long range in the 96th minute to seal the win.
Mbappe is no stranger to World Cup stardom; he guided France to victory in Russia 2018 at just 19 years of age.
His lone goal for France against Peru in 2018 made him the youngest French player to score at a World Cup, and the second teenager, after Pele, to score in a World Cup final. Mbappe’s performance earned him FIFA’s Young Player of the Year award, and he was also named France’s player of the year.
Although Messi’s Argentina robbed France of a consecutive victory in 2022, Mbappe’s hat-trick in the World Cup final was only the second time the feat has been achieved. England’s Geoff Hurst did it in 1966 at Wembley for a 4-2 victory over West Germany.
Mbappe’s goals on Tuesday mean he has scored at three consecutive World Cups, and is the only player to have scored two goals or more in five different World Cup matches.
Mehdi Torabi issued a new visa after previous one expired when team returned to Mexico following the New Zealand game.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
United States officials have confirmed that Iran’s team will have to leave the country within hours of the full-time whistle at their World Cup group games in Los Angeles and Seattle.
The response from the World Cup 2026 cohost nation came on Tuesday following criticism of its handling of the Iranian team’s visa and stay in the US after their first game.
“We were clear this was the process,” Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, told The Associated Press news agency.
Team Melli drew with New Zealand in a politically charged Group G game in Los Angeles on Monday following months of uncertainty over the team’s participation in the World Cup amid the US-Israel war on Iran.
The Iranian delegation left the US hours after the match ended at about 8pm local time (03:00 GMT) and returned to their base camp in Mexico, prompting criticism of the US handling of their visas as the team did not get a day to recover at their hotel.
Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said after the match that his team had been ordered to leave the US and return to Mexico only a few hours later. Ghalenoei said the team had expected to spend the night in California to maximise the normal recovery process after their opening game.
The US faced further pushback as Iran winger Mehdi Torabi’s entry visa expired after the first game. Team officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon that they had secured him a new, multiple-entry visa allowing him to travel into the US for future matches.
“This issue has been resolved,” the US Department of State said.
“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we worked to ensure that the player can participate in every game.”
Giuliani said during an interview broadcast Monday night on CBS News that some of the Iranian team’s support staff and team officials were denied entry into the US, but all the players and coaches had received visas.
He also outlined the conditions by which the Iranian team would be able to come into the US for their games.
“The team will be allowed to come in, match day minus one, so the day before the match. They’ll be asked to leave the day that the match wraps up, so the evening of the match. And they’ll be able to do that again in Los Angeles. They’ll be able to do it again in Seattle,” Giuliani said.
When asked about why some support staff and team officials had been denied entry, Giuliani wouldn’t go into details but referred to previous comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio about denying entry to people with direct ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“Secretary Rubio said very clearly: Anybody with direct ties to the IRGC is not coming into the United States of America, and they’re not going to let the World Cup be the reason why they can come in,” Giuliani said. “So I think it’s very clear why.”
Iran captain Mehdi Taremi said the team endured five hours of travel and security checks during what’s normally a very short trip from Tijuana to the Los Angeles area on Sunday.
“I think FIFA have to help us more than this,” Taremi said.
Follow our live build-up, with full team news coverage, ahead of our text commentary stream service.
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The number of confirmed cases in the country has increased to 837, including 196 deaths.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
The current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could become deadlier than the worst outbreak on record, which killed more than 11,000 people, says the head of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
The number of confirmed cases in the country has increased to 837, including 196 deaths, government data showed on Tuesday.
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“If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon, it will be worse than what we had in West Africa and eastern DRC,” Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said during a virtual meeting of African leaders and international donors in Burundi on Tuesday.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Kaseya said tens of thousands of people who may have been exposed to Ebola had not yet been traced or contacted.
“The contact tracing is a major indicator and a major issue. We are missing more than 26,000 people, and we don’t know where they are, and we don’t know if they are contaminating other people.”
A Red Cross official said that the epidemic had not yet peaked in the country.
“We are afraid that this could last one year to end this disease,” Bruno Michon, operations manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said.
The response has been hampered by a lack of treatment centres and by community resistance to stringent hygiene measures. Health officials said that, more than a month since the outbreak was declared, the true scale was still unknown.
The bodies of Ebola victims are highly infectious after death, and unsafe traditional burials – in which family members handle the body without proper protective equipment – are a leading driver of transmission.
So far, the continent has raised less than a fifth of the $518 million it is seeking to bolster measures to contain the outbreak, according to Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye, who also chairs the African Union.
The shortfall has raised concern among authorities, who fear the consequences could be devastating if the virus is not brought under control quickly.
There is no approved treatment or vaccine for this strain of Ebola. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it could take up to nine months for a vaccine to be ready.
Neighbouring Uganda has recorded 19 cases, 14 of them among people who had travelled from the DRC. The country has also reported two deaths.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino praised Iran’s players during a World Cup dressing room visit after the team’s 2-2 draw with New Zealand on Monday.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
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US President Donald Trump says Iran has agreed to not acquire nuclear weapons and will ‘suffer unbelievable consequences’ if they do. His remarks came during a meeting with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim at the G7 summit in France.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
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The US-Iran memorandum of understanding expected to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday could allow for the establishment of a $300bn investment fund for Iran, as part of a broader settlement to end the war that triggered a global energy crisis and upended markets worldwide.
US Vice President JD Vance told CBS News on Monday that the incentives would be connected to Iran’s “performance” in adhering to the deal, which was digitally signed by both sides on Sunday.
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The scale of the financial incentives grabbed the headlines due to US President Donald Trump’s longstanding criticism of a 2015 nuclear accord that he claimed delivered economic benefits to Tehran.
In a bid to manage perceptions around this politically sensitive issue, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to claim that “the story that the US is paying Iran 300 million Dollars is Fake News,” while Vance told CBS News that the money would not be a US payout in exchange for Iran’s enriched uranium.
“When people say that billions of dollars of assets will be released, that’s not true,” the vice president told the CBS Morning programme. “What is true is that Iran will have a much better and much more prosperous future if they meet the obligations they make in this agreement.”
Vance said the deal “fundamentally extends a hand to Iran and says, ‘Look, if you guys are willing to honour your obligations, if you’re willing to allow real inspections of your nuclear programme, then we will welcome you back into the world economy.’
“That’s the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast coalition, so long as they honour their end of the obligation,” Vance told CBS. He also claimed that while US money would not be injected, economic opportunities could arise once Iran repositions itself in the global economy.
The New York Times quoted sources saying the fund would not come from governments but be created for companies eager to invest in Iran.
Muhanad Seloom, a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said the setup was a no-lose solution for Washington. “If Iran reforms, the administration owns the peace; if it doesn’t, the US loses nothing and the Gulf carries the risk,” he told Al Jazeera.
Seloom said the idea of an investment fund was built precisely to escape the optics of releasing Iran’s frozen funds. While the exact amount of Iran’s frozen assets is unclear, official Iranian reports and experts have set the total amount at more than $100bn.
Iran’s economy has been crippled due to years of sanctions imposed on the country by the United States and other nations following the Islamic revolution in 1979, and then amplified over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programmes. These measures have restricted Tehran’s ability to access its own assets, such as revenues from oil sales, which have been frozen in foreign banks.
Tehran was granted sanctions relief in the wake of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal signed under President Barack Obama, but Trump tore it up in 2018 during his first term. The 2015 deal had put limits on Iran’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran’s state-affiliated Mehr News agency reported on Sunday that the 14-point draft memorandum of understanding provided for the release of $24bn in frozen Iranian assets.
Pressed by CBS News on the possibility of releasing frozen funds, Vance said the $24bn figure “just doesn’t appear anywhere in any of the texts that we’ve talked about with the Iranians”.
“What we have said is that we’re willing to talk about unfreezing assets, but a much, much bigger deal is unsanctioning their economy – so long as they make the long-term commitments on the nuclear programme,” the vice president added.
For Iran, where the war inflicted an estimated $29bn damage and the population is struggling with the highest inflation rate since 1942, the investment fund may constitute a much-needed lifeline.
But the optics will not be as favourable, raising a “dignity problem”, Seloom said. “Tehran reads this as supervised, conditional money rather than sovereign relief,” the analyst told Al Jazeera.
One of the US’s main declared objectives has been to assuage concerns surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, including a stockpile of more than 440kg (970lbs) of enriched uranium.
The memorandum extends an existing ceasefire arrangement for another 60 days, during which the two sides are expected to hold further negotiations on issues including the disposal of the enriched uranium.
Vance said Tehran had agreed to surrender its stockpile, undergo regular inspections and refrain from producing or buying nuclear weapons, but the full text of the memorandum of understanding has yet to be disclosed.
The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which has been subject to competing blockades by the US and Iran, has also been a point of contention. Trump suggested an agreement to reopen the waterway had been reached when he announced a deal on Sunday with the words: “Let the oil flow!”
Speaking to CNBC, however, Vance acknowledged that not all sticking points surrounding the passageway had been resolved. “Well, our expectation is that the strait is gonna be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re gonna figure out in these technical negotiations,” he said.
Israel’s ongoing aggression on Lebanon is also expected to create friction, as Iran has insisted any ceasefire deal must include the allied nation. Israel has so far rejected any arrangement that would limit its ability to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets. Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the military would continue operating in Lebanon regardless of any agreement with Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the memorandum of understanding would reap economic benefits for Iran but stressed that Tehran would not rely on those benefits for all of its needs.
“We have a history of broken promises, non-compliance, and the tearing up of agreements,” Araghchi said on Monday, according to Press TV. He said discussions about the lifting of US sanctions and Iran’s nuclear programme would be held during a 60-day period of negotiations following the official signature on Friday.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has yet to comment. Some Iranian observers objected to the timing of the announcement, which coincided with Trump’s birthday. Referring to the assassination of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the beginning of the US-Iran war, conservative journalist Parisa Nasr wrote on X: “Was giving a birthday gift to the killer of the martyred Leader also one of the unwritten conditions of the deal?”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had approved the deal so that “America’s genuine commitment to respecting the rights of the Iranian nation could be tested in practice.”
Speaking at the G7 summit in France on Tuesday, Trump described the deal with Iran as “fair”, “good”, and under which Iran “can’t have a nuclear weapon” or “they get blown up.”
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is also attending the summit, said the Iran-US agreement will result in positive outcomes for the region.
“This is a very important deal, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but with this momentum – if we continue like that, Mr President – I think we can achieve and do great things in the region,” Sheikh Tamim said.
US Democratic lawmakers welcomed a deal to halt the war with Iran but stressed that its terms must be made public. Senator Gregory Meeks said “any final agreement must be durable, enforceable, transparent” and more than “vague announcements or political spin”.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday said he was “pleased” about the deal but also “somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming”.
Seloom, at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said the different narratives underlined that the two sides were “not really talking to each other”. “They’re talking past each other, to domestic audiences,” he said. “Each side has to sell this as a victory it cannot sell honestly.”
Los Angeles – “I’m sure when we score a goal today, everyone will be cheering.”
That was the prediction of Iranian fan Parsa Tafreshi, who had travelled from New York to Los Angeles to see Iran take on New Zealand on Monday.
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His words would prove largely true.
The game ended in a thrilling 2-2 draw, and each time Iran – known as Team Melli – scored, the stadium erupted in deafening celebrations.
There were two opposing sets of Iranian flags in Los Angeles, home to a large Iranian American community that is largely staunchly opposed to the governing system in Tehran.
Some fans waved the Islamic Republic flag, adorned with the name of God. Others opted for the pre-1979-revolution flag featuring the lion and sun, used by the Iranian opposition.
But when Team Melli were building up an attack, their supporters sang in unison.
Chants of “Iran, Iran” rang throughout the stadium, and the fans held their breath collectively each time Iran’s attackers came near New Zealand’s goal.
Concerns of unrest around the game did not materialise. Iranian fans vastly outnumbered their New Zealand counterparts at the stadium, and the game ended without any major incident.
A small group of demonstrators had gathered outside the venue, waving Israeli flags and chanting in support of opposition figure Reza Pahlavi.
They also called on United States President Donald Trump to resume the war with Iran, although Washington and Tehran have already reached a ceasefire deal.
“President Trump, finish the job,” they chanted on a loud megaphone.
Protesters also shouted slogans against the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
One of the demonstrators held a banner featuring the faces of Team Melli players with red crosses on them.
“IRGC Team,” it said, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with red ink meant to resemble blood dripping from the letters.
Protester Kourosh Kiumarsi told Al Jazeera that the Iranian squad is the “regime team”.
Asked about the Israeli flags at the demonstration, he said: “Israel and the USA attacked the regime and helped the people of Iran. They are not at war with Iran. They are at war with the Islamic Republic regime.”
Despite the intensity of the slogans at the protest, it was small and contained.
![Protesters outside the Los Angeles Stadium [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/1000180724-1781564207.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
“I love that all the hype was just outside of the stadium,” said Sudi Farokhnia, who wore a green, white and red wig and a shirt featuring the lion and sun flag.
“Once you walked into the stadium, all you could hear was Iran, Iran, Iran. The energy was amazing. The people were amazing,” she told Al Jazeera after the match.
But that does not mean the entire affair was apolitical.
It would be difficult to argue that the pre-revolution flag is not a political statement.
FIFA bans political symbols at international matches, but thousands of Iranian fans on Monday were able to come in with lion-and-sun flags, shirts and hats.
Many also wore political slogans like “Make Iran Great Again” and “free Iran”.
FIFA did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the issue.
There were also other political expressions at the match.
Arash, an Iranian fan who asked to be identified by his first name only, wore a shirt that said “Mibab 168” on the back.
The US-Israel war on Iran killed hundreds of civilians, including 168 children at a girl’s school in the southern city of Minab, during the first day of the conflict.
“This is not a political shirt. This is not just to send a political message,” Arash told Al Jazeera.
“It’s a simple, simple statement: Schools are sanctuaries, whether it’s school shootings, bombings. School is a place of virtue. It’s a place of learning. It’s a place that – no matter who you are, what you believe in, what country – school should be off limits.”
Inside the stadium, a group of Iranian fans also revealed a “MINAB 168” message during the game.
There were also Palestinian and Israeli flags visible in the stands.
The match kicked off with a political message: Many fans jeered the Iranian national anthem, which opposition activists see as representative of the government.
Iran’s participation in the tournament was in peril earlier this year because of the war. Team Melli were forced to stay in Mexico as their base camp, while all their group-stage matches were in the US, because the Trump administration refused to host them.
Once the ball was kicked, however, that all faded into the background.
It was 11 versus 11. And the football delivered excitement, joy and disappointment.
Iran dropped two valuable points against a lower-ranked team, but came twice from behind and hit the woodwork once.
And each of the two times the net bulged, the goals brought happiness to a nation with two flags at home and abroad that has gone through war and immense hardship.
There was a number of protesters outside.
But when Iran scored, almost all Iranians cheered.
Benchmark S&P 500 rises 1.7 percent, while tech-heavy Nasdaq jumps 3.1 percent.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
US stocks have rallied on hopes that the tentative deal to end the US-Israel war on Iran will restore stability to energy supply chains roiled by months of disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
The S&P 500 rose 1.7 percent on Monday, taking the benchmark index within touching distance of its all-time high.
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The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.1 percent, aided by a 19.6 percent gain by SpaceX, which on Friday made the biggest market debut in history and minted the world’s first trillionaire in Elon Musk.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.9 percent, closing at a record high.
Brent crude futures, the primary benchmark for global oil prices, fell nearly 5 percent to just above $83 a barrel, the lowest price since the first week of the conflict.
Asian stock markets were largely flat on Monday morning, after surging the previous day on the back of US President Donald Trump’s announcement of his deal with Tehran.
As of 01:30 GMT, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was 0.01 percent lower, while South Korea’s Kospi, the best-performing major index this year, was down 0.06 percent.
In Taiwan, the TAIEX was up 0.2 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.07 percent.
Jay Goldberg, a senior analyst for tech-related equities at the Chicago-based Seaport Research Partners, said the announcement of the US-Iran deal had tilted investors’ risk balancing act towards buying into the market.
“To oversimplify, the debate has been: AI spending is strong, but there’s a war going on,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.
“The war is over, it seems, so that side of the argument falls away. Investors are now feeling better about taking on more risk,” Goldberg said.
While Washington and Tehran’s framework has raised hopes for a return to stability in global energy markets, it is expected to take months before energy flows fully return to normal, due to the massive backlog of vessels around the Strait of Hormuz and the need to ensure the waterway is safe from Iranian naval mines.
According to the International Shipping Chamber, about 500 ships are still waiting to pass through the strait, which normally carries about one-fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas.
From his hometown of Sao Vicente in Cape Verde, Vozinha has been his jersey name throughout his club career.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha broke down in tears at the end of the 0-0 draw with Spain after the 40-year-old was mobbed by his teammates following a stunning display as he denied the European champions victory in their World Cup opener.
Cape Verde were pinned back in their own half for much of Monday’s game, but whenever Spain broke through their dogged rearguard, Vozinha came to the rescue.
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His heroics earned him the player of the match, pulling off a string of saves at the end of the first half to deny Ferran Torres, Pedri and Aymeric Laporte.
Here’s everything we know about the Cape Verde goalkeeper:
Vozinha goalkeeps for Chaves in Portugal’s second-tier football league.
The World Cup is by far the biggest stage he has reached, but Vozinha began his club career at home with Batuque FC, before transferring to CS Mindelense.
The veteran player’s experience comes from the myriad clubs he has represented – from Progresso in Angola to Zimbru Chisinau in Moldova, Gil Vicente in Portugal, AEL Limassol in Cyprus and AS Trencin in Slovakia, before arriving at Chaves.
No, Vozinha is a moniker for Josimar Jose Evora Dias. It came from his grandparents, whom he spent most of his time with as his father was in the military and his mother was working. The name checks out, since it means “little granny” in Portuguese.
From his hometown of Sao Vicente in Cape Verde, Vozinha has been his jersey name throughout the nomadic club pilgrimage across Africa and Europe.
“When I arrived in Angola, there was another goalkeeper named Josimar, and I said, ‘I am not going to put Josimar II on the shirt’. If everyone knew me as Vozinha in Cape Verde, that’s what I would be,” he told FIFA in an interview earlier this year.
The Cape Verde keeper was reduced to tears by his heroics and fairytale World Cup debut.
“Very proud… It is an honour for me to represent my country,” Vozinha told reporters of his island nation, the third smallest nation to qualify for a World Cup.
“I cried because I grew up with my grandparents and, unfortunately, they were not here; they died a few years before, and they did everything for me and my life,” he added.
“Also, my mum, she didn’t manage to be here because of the visa. The money for the visa, we didn’t manage on time, and I would like her to be here.”
Yes, on all counts.
The goalkeeper’s Instagram following jumped from a modest 500,000 to nearly 5 million within a few hours of full-time in the Spain match.
His quiet brilliance was spotlighted on the world’s biggest stage for all to see.
French football star Paul Pogba took to social media after the match in praise of Vozinha.
“The Cape Verde goalkeeper is really something, waaaaw,” he wrote.
Published On 16 Jun 202616 Jun 2026
Maxi Araujo scored a late equaliser to salvage a 1-1 draw for Uruguay in their World Cup opener against Saudi Arabia, preventing another stunning upset in Group H after Spain’s earlier goalless draw with Cape Verde.
The Saudis famously beat Argentina 2-1 in their 2022 tournament opener, and they looked on course for another shock, courtesy of Abdulelah Alamri’s 41st-minute strike, until winger Araujo stepped up 10 minutes from time at Miami Stadium on Monday.
Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa certainly viewed it as a missed opportunity after European champions Spain dropped two points earlier in the day.
“An opponent we should have beaten; we gave away minutes in the first half that suggest we didn’t do things right,” he said. “We had to win this match.”
The Green Falcons ultimately had goalkeeper Mohammed Alowais to thank for their point, which will give them confidence they can progress to the knockout stage for the first time since the United States last hosted the World Cup in 1994.
“We were very tired at the end, but to play this type of game with this opponent, and to get a point, it’s a positive for us,” said Saudi Arabia coach Georgios Donis.
“I like the spirit and the passion of my players, but I think we have the quality to play better.”
Uruguay, World Cup winners in 1930 and 1950, started the match with the swagger of favourites, and in the fifth minute, left winger Araujo turned on the edge of the box and angled a shot at goal, which Alowais parried away.
But barring a Federico Vinas diving header on the half-hour mark, which Alowais also pushed away, the Uruguayans lacked accuracy going forward and often looked a bit casual at the back.
Donis had promised his side would be courageous, and their attack sparked into life in the 36th minute, when left-back Moteb Alharbi skipped through the midfield before being cynically cut down 30 metres (about 30 yards) from goal.
Alamri had a shot from the centre of the box well saved by Fernando Muslera two minutes later, but the Uruguay goalkeeper was powerless to prevent the Saudis from going ahead soon afterwards.
Mohamed Kanno got on the end of a Musab Aljuwayr corner, and although Muslera managed to save his powerful header, Alamri was on hand to tap the ball into the net.
Bielsa made two changes at the break, and Uruguay’s game plan immediately looked more coherent – getting players down the flank to put crosses into the box and producing a string of headers for Alowais to deal with.
Defensive midfielder Manuel Ugarte came within inches of an equaliser when he beat the Saudi keeper in the 60th minute, only for his drilled shot to bounce off the far post.
Vinas had been Uruguay’s best aerial threat all game, and it was no surprise that the breakthrough came from one of his headers 10 minutes from full-time.
Alowais again denied the target man, but the ball fell straight to Araujo, who did well to control it and clip it into the net at the near post.
Uruguay poured forward, looking for a winner in a frenetic finish; Federico Valverde and Jose Maria Gimenez coming closest with rasping shots from either side of the box, which Alowais did well to push past his posts.
“I think the nerves of the debut worked against us, as did the need to go out and score,” said Vinas.
“In the second half, we did a bit more of what the manager wanted. I’m frustrated and angry, but as captain, I’m happy with my teammates’ work.”
The preliminary deal to end US-Israel war on Iran has sent oil prices tumbling to a three-month low amid hopes that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
But it could be months before American consumers see major relief at the petrol pump.
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The closure of the strategic chokepoint disrupted global energy markets for more than three months, cutting off a major shipping route through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said prices would “drop like a rock” once the strait reopens, a claim he has made multiple times in the past few weeks.
However, experts caution that a major decline in prices is unlikely to happen as quickly as Trump suggests.
While Asian markets rely more heavily on oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz than North American markets, tighter supply and steady demand have pushed prices higher worldwide.
On Monday, petrol prices in the US remained above $4 per gallon (3.78 litres), averaging $4.06 nationwide, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This was a dip from a high in early May of $4.48 per gallon.
By comparison, prices stood at $2.98 per gallon on February 28, when the US and Israel first struck Iran, triggering a ripple effect across global energy markets.
Energy prices have risen sharply in the US in recent months, increasing 7.7 percent over the last two months alone, and are up 40 percent from a year ago, according to last week’s inflation report from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics,
However, prices are beginning to fall, a dip that began as Washington and Tehran entered negotiations.
“The potential deal that the US and Iran agreed to over the weekend certainly could pave the way for even lower prices… in the next two to three days by what we saw over the weekend,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks petrol prices, told Al Jazeera.
But De Haan expects a plateau and says that consumers may not see gas prices at pre-war levels until 2027, even if the ceasefire holds.
“It may take many months, if not beyond a year, for global oil inventories to recover to pre-war levels,” De Haan said.
Amid strains on the supply chain, producers will also need time to ramp up output, while port bottlenecks and heightened demand during the busy summer travel season could delay any substantial relief for everyday consumers.
“There are some mitigating factors that are going to slow the decline in prices. There are a lot of organisations and companies that have to re-up their stockpiles [like the US’s strategic petroleum reserve] and fulfil contracts that have been on hold for the last few months,” John Deal, managing director of capital markets at the Post Oak Group investment bank, said.
Fixing kinks in the supply chain takes time.
Oil production slumped amid the war. More than 14 million barrels per day, or 14 percent of the world’s demand, has been shut, according to the International Energy Agency.
Deal said it would take time to get oil production back online.
“My sense is that there’s going to be sustained high demand through the summertime, and we probably won’t get back to pre-war levels [on petrol prices] until after the summer, maybe September or October,” Deal said.
Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, said that producers might be reluctant to bring full operations back online until they can see the ceasefire hold.
The agreement opening the blockade is for a 60-day negotiation period between the two countries.
“Many [producers] may be reluctant to restart production until they are convinced that the peace will hold, because the last thing they want to do is carry out the costly effort to restart production only to see the conflict revived and then have to shut it down once again,” Jones told Al Jazeera.
Getting production back online is also dependent on the impact individual producers have faced throughout the war.
Refineries that were shut as a precaution could reach as much as 95 percent capacity within 40-60 days, Vitol Bahrain’s head of research, Bader Nooruddin, told the Reuters news agency. Those damaged in the fighting could take much longer.
But bottlenecks at ports could be the biggest hurdle, according to Deal.
“There’s a lag time with shipping capacity. Shipping capacity is perhaps the most significant constraint,” Deal said.
This is because there are more than 500 ships still awaiting passage, according to shipping data from Kpler.
With the ships headed all over the world, it will take them weeks to reach their destinations, dock, and unload at the ports.
That also means a wave of empty ships is waiting in limbo for spots at ports to load cargo and ramp back up to normal operations.
Major shipping giants are in a holding pattern.
Norway’s Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Denmark’s Maersk both told Reuters that they have not changed their Middle East operations in the wake of the announcement.
During the war, there was limited passage through the Strait of Hormuz, with an average of 10 ships a day passing through, compared with 135 that normally transit the waterway, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.
“Tankers take months to reach their final destination and then come back again. So the ability to replenish the stocks is going to take until, I think, the early fall, just from a shipping perspective, to get back to the status quo that was in place before the conflict started,” Jones said, referring to the preferred term for the months of September through November in North America.
At the same time, US strategic reserves are running low, at their lowest levels since 1983. Reserves have tumbled by 18 percent since the war began.
“Demand might keep prices high through the summer as strategic reserves get refilled,” Deal added.
Jet fuel demand will also put pressure on consumers amid the normally busy JuneAugust travel season in the US.
“The war has really affected airlines and their ability to schedule and anticipate how the summer months are going to go,” Deal added.
In April, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that airfares for the carrier may have to jump as much as 20 percent on higher fuel prices.
The increase in prices is also hitting food budgets.
The most recent consumer price index report showed US inflation ticked up by 4.2 percent compared with this time last year. While inflationary pressures were mostly driven by fuel prices, the impact has still been felt at the grocery store.
Almost half of the world’s urea, which is used in fertiliser, is produced in the Gulf region and passes through the Strait of Hormuz. For American farmers, that means access to fertilisers for the next crop season is more expensive.
Tomato prices, already driven up by Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, have surged 40 percent in the last year amid rising transportation costs.
Lettuce prices rose by more than 16 percent in May, and the price of ground beef increased by about 12 percent compared with this time last year.
Jones warned that food prices may not go down.
“Many retailers, wholesalers, and producers will keep them where they are or only reduce them if forced to from a sales perspective. Unlike petrol, which tends to ebb and flow with the price of oil, prices for many other goods that have been adversely affected by all of this are much less likely to return to where they were prior to the start of the conflict,” Jones said.
“For groceries, for manufacturing goods, for anything that has gone up during the conflict, the price that is there now often becomes the new baseline from which prices move in the future.”
This can be compared with the COVID-19 pandemic period. When the pandemic stalled supply chains, producers increased prices. A 2024 investigation by the Federal Trade Commission found that retail grocers kept prices elevated after supply chain constraints brought on by the pandemic had eased.
“Some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits,” the report said.
Australian referee Shaun Evans says he didn’t intend to ‘communicate a message, affiliation, game or belief of any kind’.
Published On 15 Jun 202615 Jun 2026
FIFA says it has found “no evidence” that one of the referees at the World Cup breached its code of conduct after he was accused of making a white supremacist hand gesture during one of the games.
“FIFA’s independent Disciplinary Committee can confirm that, after looking into the matter involving support video assistant referee Shaun Evans, it has found no evidence of breaches of the FIFA Disciplinary Code,” football’s global governing body told Al Jazeera in an emailed statement on Monday.
Earlier, FIFA’s discrimination monitor at the World Cup called for Evans, working as a VAR official in the tournament, to be removed for appearing to make a hand gesture resembling a white supremacist sign.
When the official broadcast of Germany’s opening game against Curacao on Sunday cut pre-game to show the team of video review analysts, Australian official Evans made an “OK” symbol with his right hand in front of his right leg.
Though the game was played in Houston, video officials work in Dallas at the World Cup broadcast centre.
Evans said the hand gesture was not intentional, nor did he make it to “communicate a message, affiliation, game or belief of any kind”.
“The only explanation I can offer is that the movement was an involuntary, subconscious twitch and I was unaware I had done it at the time,” the official said in a statement shortly before FIFA announced its decision.
“Images taken later during the match showed that I repeated this movement many times while holding a pen between my fingers,” Evans went on to add.
“The coverage following this incident simply does not reflect who I am. Of course, I understand how the gesture has been interpreted and I regret this; however, I want to be very clear and categorically say that I did not knowingly or deliberately make the hand symbol suggested.”
Follow our live build-up, protest news, score, team sheets, score, photos and text commentary stream from Los Angeles.
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The lawsuit originally filed in September focused on broader alleged misappropriation of confidential information.
Published On 15 Jun 202615 Jun 2026
A United States federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI that accused rival Sam Altman’s OpenAI of stealing trade secrets for chatbots.
US District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco said on Monday that xAI failed to show that OpenAI induced former xAI senior engineer Xuechen Li to divulge confidential information related to its Grok chatbot, or that OpenAI engineers knew Li might have disclosed any.
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Lin dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, saying it would be “futile” to continue. She dismissed an earlier version in February. The lawsuit originally filed last September focused on broader alleged misappropriation of confidential information, including source code, by xAI employees who left for jobs at OpenAI.
Monday’s decision is Musk’s second legal loss against OpenAI in four weeks.
On May 18, a federal jury ruled against Musk, the world’s richest person, in his $150bn lawsuit accusing OpenAI and Altman of “stealing a charity” by betraying the company’s original mission as a nonprofit to enrich themselves.
The xAI business is part of Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company SpaceX.
Lawyers for xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. OpenAI and its lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.
The amended complaint focused on a presentation that Li gave while OpenAI was recruiting him.
Musk’s company said OpenAI wanted secrets related to the July 2025 release of Grok 4, knowing its forthcoming update to ChatGPT “could not compete” on complex reasoning, and because OpenAI was “lagging” in reinforcement learning and post-training techniques that Li understood.
But the judge said asking job candidates to discuss their prior work was routine, and one could not infer that OpenAI pushed Li to leak anything confidential.
“To hold otherwise would potentially expose employers to liability any time they inquire about a candidate’s past work,” Lin wrote.
OpenAI has said Li never worked for the company and that it never acquired xAI secrets.
In seeking dismissal, lawyers for OpenAI wrote: “OpenAI does not need or want anyone’s trade secrets, especially not from xAI, which is failing in the marketplace and hemorrhaging talent.”
Li is being sued separately by xAI and has denied wrongdoing.
Lamine Yamal comes off the bench but cannot help Spain overcome World Cup debutants Cape Verde in 0-0 draw.
Published On 15 Jun 202615 Jun 2026
Spain’s ghosts of recent World Cup horror shows reappeared in Atlanta as the European champions were held 0-0 by debutants Cape Verde in their opening game.
Lamine Yamal was left on the bench as the Barcelona superstar is eased back to fitness after nearly two months out with a hamstring injury and even his appearance as a second-half substitute failed to break down Cape Verde’s dogged defence.
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Since winning the World Cup for the first time in 2010, Spain have not won a knockout game and their inability to make dominance of possession count was reminiscent of their meek exits in 2018 and 2022.
Blessed with what coach Luis de la Fuente claimed is the best squad in the competition, Spain were considered among the pre-tournament favourites to go all the way and lift the World Cup on July 19.
But the importance of Yamal and Nico Williams to their chances of success was underlined by a flat performance.
Williams also had an injury-disrupted season at Athletic Bilbao and was not introduced until the 87th minute.
Ranked 67 in the world, Cape Verde were making their debut on the global stage and did a nation of just over 500,000 people proud.
In stark contrast to the searing temperatures faced by some other sides, Atlanta’s state-of-the-art air conditioned stadium meant there was no excuses for the slow tempo of Spain’s build-up.
Indeed the mid-half hydration break was met by boos with fans frustrated at the break in play despite the cool conditions.
It took until six minutes before half-time for Spain to seriously threaten.
Marc Cucurella, fresh for sealing his move from Chelsea to Real Madrid, sent over a teasing cross that Ferran Torres turned onto the crossbar and Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha got back on his feet to turn Mikel Oyarzabal’s looping header over the bar.
Torres tested Vozinho again moments later before Aymeric Laporte’s header from a corner was also clawed away by the Cape Verde number one just before half-time.
The break came at a good time for the Blue Sharks and they comfortably held out in the second period until Yamal’s entrance after the second hydration break.
Billed as one of the stars of the tournament, Yamal’s appearance instantly lifted the crowd and injected life into the pedestrian Spanish attack.
His first involvement set up a decent opening for fellow substitute Mikel Merino which was too close to Vozinha.
Yamal also began the move that saw Oyarzabal’s effort deflected over with Spain’s best chance of the second half.
Cape Verde nearly snatched a famous victory in the final minute of the 90 when Dani Borges planted a header too close to Unai Simon.
Spain’s road to victory in 2010 also began disappointingly with defeat to Switzerland, but they have much to work on ahead of facing Saudi Arabia in Atlanta once more on Sunday.
Cape Verde next take on Uruguay in Miami.
Al Jazeera’s Samantha Johnson has your FIFA World Cup 2026 day four recap.
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Israeli journalist Gideon Levy says the US-Iran announcement represents a personal defeat for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ambitions against Iran and Lebanon. His relationship with US President Donald Trump could also be at risk if Israel jeopardises the deal.
Published On 15 Jun 202615 Jun 2026
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