Heroes to the last: Cape Verde push Messi's Argentina to the brink before an own goal ends the fairytale

Argentina survived a huge scare to beat Cape Verde 3-2 after extra time and reach the Round of 16. Lionel Messi scored his 20th career World Cup goal to lead the Golden Boot, but Cape Verde twice equalised, including a Sidny Lopes Cabral wondergoal, before an own goal settled it in the 111th minute. Cape Verde's fairytale ends; Argentina face Egypt next.

Some teams lose and win everyone's heart in the same night. Cape Verde, the smallest of the small, pushed the reigning world champions to the very brink in Miami, twice coming from behind before Argentina survived 3-2 after extra time, and only thanks to an own goal. Lionel Messi and his team are through, but it was the Blue Sharks who left as the story.

Messi got them going. On twenty-nine minutes he produced a sublime touch and finish for his twentieth career World Cup goal, extending his own all-time record and moving him into the solo lead for the Golden Boot. It should have been the platform for a comfortable evening. It was anything but.

Cape Verde simply would not lie down. Just before the hour Deroy Duarte squeezed home from a narrow angle to level it, and though Lisandro Martínez restored Argentina's lead two minutes into stoppage time, the debutants had one more miracle in them. In the 103rd minute full-back Sidny Lopes Cabral unleashed a breathtaking curling wondergoal to make it 2-2 and send Miami into disbelief.

A shock for the ages was on. It took the cruellest of blows to deny it. In the 111th minute Cristian Romero rose to meet a Lionel Messi corner, and his header deflected off Diney Borges and past a helpless Vozinha for an own goal. Argentina had escaped, but only just, and they knew it.

For Cape Verde, it is the end of one of the great World Cup fairytales. The second-smallest nation ever to qualify, an archipelago of half a million people, went unbeaten in normal time across the entire tournament, holding Spain, drawing with Uruguay, reaching the last 32 and then taking the world champions to extra time and within a whisker of the impossible. Vozinha, their forty-year-old goalkeeper, was a hero to the last. Bubista's Blue Sharks go home with the admiration of the planet.

Argentina, who topped their group, march on to a Round of 16 tie with Egypt in Atlanta, a meeting of Messi and Mohamed Salah. Lionel Scaloni's champions know they will have to be far better, but they are still standing, and their talisman is still writing history.

For Kenya, this is heartbreak wrapped in pride. Cape Verde were the fairytale East Africa adopted, the Cinderella story of the whole tournament, and to watch them come so close to toppling Messi's Argentina was to watch African football announce itself all over again. Visiwa vidogo vimemtoa jasho Messi, wametoka kama mashujaa wa kweli: the little islands made Messi sweat, and they leave as true heroes. There are tears, but there is joy too, and with Egypt now carrying the flag into a tie with Argentina, Africa is not done. Our Africa verdict fell in love with these Blue Sharks, and so did the world.