0.65 xG. From 75 percent possession. That is Portugal’s first-half-and-full-match combined attacking return against a team ranked 63 places below them in the world, and it tells you everything the scoreline is too polite to say.
Portugal drew 1-1 with Congo DR in their Group K opener at NRG Stadium in Houston on June 17, 2026. Joao Neves headed Portugal in front in the sixth minute from Pedro Neto’s cross. Yoane Wissa headed Congo DR level from Arthur Masuaku’s corner delivery in the fifth minute of first-half stoppage time. Congo DR finished the match with 0.87 xG to Portugal’s 0.65. A team playing their first World Cup since 1974 created more than their opponents did.
Make no mistake, this was not a spirited defensive performance from Congo DR. They pressed, they counter-attacked with menace, and they genuinely threatened to win this football match.
Joao Neves had the simplest of headers at the near post six minutes in, Neto’s delivery perfect, and it felt like the start of something comfortable. Portugal would soon find out that comfort was not on offer tonight. Bernardo Silva picked up a yellow card in the 13th minute for a foul that summed up early Portuguese frustration, and from around that point, the electric atmosphere in Houston shifted. Chancel Mbemba’s booking in the 32nd minute was Congo DR’s only real blemish in a half they finished strongly.
Then the equalizer. Corner to Congo DR, Masuaku swings it in, and Wissa — seven yards out gets up above his marker and glances it into the top-left corner. Portugal’s proud record of never conceding a goal in first-half stoppage time at a World Cup, or whatever reassuring statistic their camp might have had in mind, ended there. The pockets of blue-clad fans in a stadium otherwise full of Portugal supporters roared something that had been building for forty-five minutes.
Here is the thing Portugal spent the entire second half looking like a team that needed someone to sort out the problem, and the one person they wanted to sort it out could not.
Cancelo had what looked like a bicycle-kick winner in the 55th minute, only to be correctly ruled offside. Cedric Bakambu rattled the post at the other end shortly after, with a free-kick controversially awarded against him rather than play being allowed to continue. Kapuadi headed wide from eight yards. Bakambu fired over from a cutback by Sadiki. Congo DR were not hanging on they were hunting.
Cristiano Ronaldo came close twice. In the 68th minute from 11 yards, right-footed, he steered it wide right. In the 74th minute from 10 yards, same foot, same side, same outcome. He shook his head both times. There is something genuinely painful about watching a player at the end of an extraordinary career unable to find the moment that would make him the first man to score in six different World Cups. Ronaldo became the oldest outfield player to start a World Cup match here, taking that record from Canada’s Atiba Hutchinson. He also became the most experienced outfield player behind only Messi, Lothar Matthaus and Miroslav Klose in terms of World Cup appearances. Milestones stacked up around him while the one that mattered stayed out of reach.
Roberto Martinez threw on Rafael Leao, Goncalo Ramos and Nelson Semedo — Semedo earning a yellow card in the 88th minute for fouling Wissa as the Newcastle striker broke forward again and none of the changes changed the game’s fundamental dynamic. Bruno Fernandes missed from outside the box in the 90th minute, pulling left of the near post. In stoppage time, Ronaldo had one final chance from a Fernandes cross, heading it off target from close range. Both of them, at the final whistle, wore the breathless look of men who could not quite explain what had happened.
Portugal’s 724 accurate passes, against Congo DR’s 195. Both teams created the same number of big chances: zero for Portugal, one for Congo DR. One. A team with 25 percent possession created more genuine goalscoring moments than the team that had the ball for three quarters of the game.
Strip away the noise and the story of Group K is this: Congo DR, returning to the World Cup for the first time in 52 years, came to Houston and were the better side. Not lucky. Not heroic-underdog-holding-on. Better.
In the stands, the parents of Diogo Jota watched on. Jota, who died alongside his brother in a car accident last summer, was mourned by the whole football world. His family being there, in that luxury suite, as Portugal stumbled through their opener, carried a weight that the football alone could not come close to matching. Some things exist outside the game, and some nights remind you of that.
Portugal sit on one point in Group K. Congo DR sit on one point too. Colombia lead on six. The table is exactly as open as this match suggested it would be, and Roberto Martinez will know that a team capable of 0.65 xG in a game they dominated by possession cannot expect to go deep in this tournament. The question is whether he knows how to fix it, and whether the player everyone is watching has enough World Cups left to find out.