Portugal Held to Draw by DR Congo in World Cup Opener
HOUSTON – Portugal arrived with the weight of expectation and the glow of a perfect start. They left with a single point, a blunt attack, and a reminder that World Cups rarely follow the script.
DR Congo, back on this stage after 52 years, refused to play the role of grateful guests. They absorbed, they suffered, and then they struck. By the end, it was Roberto Martinez’s side hanging on to a draw that had once looked inevitable, then suddenly felt precarious.
Dream start, dull reality
The afternoon opened as if Portugal were about to roll. Six minutes in, Pedro Neto found space on the left and whipped in a teasing cross. Joao Neves, timing his run perfectly, rose to meet it and powered a header in from around 15 metres. One-nil, early control, pre-tournament favourites in stride.
That was it. Portugal’s only effort on target all game.
From that moment, the match drifted into something that felt far too comfortable for a World Cup opener. Portugal’s midfield – rich in technique and reputation – passed and probed, but almost always in front of DR Congo’s lines. The ball moved, the score did not. The African side sat deep, kept their shape, and waited.
Martinez later admitted the tension around his squad, the sense of a group carrying the ambition of a nation and the personal storyline of their 41-year-old captain.
"We didn't create enough chances and probably we lost that intention of scoring the second goal," he said, pointing to a team that seemed more concerned with managing the occasion than killing off the contest. The weight of “wanting to win the World Cup,” as he put it, seemed to seep into their play.
Wissa writes history
DR Congo’s belief grew with every Portuguese sideways pass. Their president, Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, watched from the stands as his team edged higher up the pitch, tackles snapping in with more conviction, counters breaking with more purpose.
Then, deep into first-half stoppage time, came the moment that will live far beyond this tournament.
Arthur Masuaku, given a yard on the left, shaped his body and whipped in a vicious cross. Yoane Wissa, unmarked and alive to the chance, attacked the ball and guided his header past the keeper. DR Congo’s first-ever World Cup goal. A roar, a release, a nation’s 52-year wait finally broken.
"It is a step forward for us to have scored this first goal and to have this first point for our country during this World Cup," coach Sebastien Desabre said. "We gave everything we had against the team of Portugal. We are delighted."
From a likely procession, the game had turned into a contest. And Portugal, for all their possession, suddenly looked short of ideas.
Ronaldo’s record, Portugal’s regret
This was supposed to be another chapter in Cristiano Ronaldo’s vast World Cup story. At 41, he became the oldest player ever to start a World Cup match, chasing a goal in a sixth edition, a record he shares with Lionel Messi. Instead, it became a study in frustration.
DR Congo’s defenders crowded him, cut off his runs, and clogged the spaces where he has lived for two decades. Crosses rarely found him. Through balls never quite arrived. He saw little of the ball and even less of the penalty area.
Portugal emerged for the second half with a sharper edge, the emotion of the occasion sharpened by the presence of the parents of former teammate Diogo Jota, who died in a car crash along with his brother in 2025. Martinez made a statement by withdrawing Bernardo Silva at the break, but he left Ronaldo on, trusting his all-time leading scorer to conjure something from a game that was slipping away.
The chances finally came, but they fell flat. Ronaldo twice shot wide from close range, snatching at openings that once seemed routine. At the other end, Cedric Bakambu almost flipped the night on its head, rattling the post and sending a jolt of panic through the Portuguese ranks.
The match, which had once resembled a training exercise, now felt precarious. DR Congo hunted the counter, Portugal pushed but never truly broke through. The whistle arrived with the scores level and the favourites staring at a missed opportunity.
Pressure rising in Group K
For DR Congo, this was more than a point. It was a statement of belonging. A first goal, a first point, and the sense that they will not simply be passengers in Group K.
For Portugal, the table is already complicated. Uzbekistan and Colombia meet later in Mexico City, and suddenly those fixtures against the debutants and the South Americans feel heavier. Martinez’s side need more than sterile dominance. They need incision, risk, and a way to unburden a squad that looks trapped between reverence for its captain and the urgency of the present.
They exited in the quarter-finals to Morocco in 2022, another African side that exposed their limits when the stakes rose. Now, with Ronaldo chasing one of the last pieces of silverware missing from his career, Portugal are already on the clock.
The margin for error has shrunk. The story of their World Cup will be written quickly from here.
