Portugal Held to Draw as DR Congo Makes Historic World Cup Return

HOUSTON – Portugal arrived with the weight of expectation, Cristiano Ronaldo with the weight of history. They left with a single point and a sharp reminder that World Cups rarely follow the script.

On a sweltering afternoon that was supposed to showcase one of the tournament favourites, it was the Democratic Republic of Congo – back on this stage after 52 years – who walked away with the moment that will live longest in the memory.

Dream start, flat response

For six minutes, everything looked exactly as Portugal had imagined it.

Pedro Neto burst down the flank, picked his head up and delivered a measured cross. Joao Neves, ghosting into space some 15 metres out, met it with a clean header. One-nil, early control, the kind of goal that usually opens the floodgates for a side stacked with talent.

It never did.

That header turned out to be Portugal’s only effort on target all game. For a team talked up as genuine contenders, that statistic tells its own story.

Roberto Martinez admitted as much. His side, he said, played with the tension of a group already thinking about lifting the trophy rather than winning the match in front of them. Portugal kept the ball, but in the wrong places, at the wrong tempo, in the zones DR Congo were happy to defend.

The passes were neat, the patterns familiar, yet the edge was missing. What should have been a statement performance drifted into something that looked alarmingly like a training exercise.

DR Congo grow, and strike

DR Congo had waited more than half a century to return to a World Cup. They were not about to go quietly.

Backed loudly in the stands, with President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo watching on, Sebastien Desabre’s side absorbed pressure, stayed compact and trusted their pace on the break. The early goal could have rattled them. Instead, it sharpened their focus.

Gradually, the tackles bit harder, the counters carried more conviction, the belief grew. Portugal’s dominance of possession began to feel sterile rather than threatening.

Then, deep into first-half stoppage time, came the moment that will be replayed across Kinshasa for years.

Arthur Masuaku found space wide and whipped in a teasing cross. Yoane Wissa, inexplicably unmarked, attacked it and thumped his header past the goalkeeper. DR Congo’s first-ever World Cup goal. A landmark, delivered with authority.

Desabre called it “a step forward” – a first goal, a first point, and a performance that showed they belonged here. His players had emptied the tank against a side loaded with pedigree and reputation. They had something tangible to show for it.

Ronaldo’s record, Portugal’s reality

The second half brought more urgency from Portugal, but not much more clarity.

They emerged with a sharper tempo, a little more intent, and a tactical tweak as Bernardo Silva made way at the break. Ronaldo stayed on, of course. At 41, becoming the oldest player ever to start a World Cup match and appearing in a record-equalling sixth tournament alongside Lionel Messi, he carried the hopes of a nation and the glare of the global spotlight.

The fairytale, though, never arrived.

DR Congo’s defenders tracked his runs, squeezed the space, and denied him the pockets of room he has lived off for two decades. Ronaldo still had his chances – twice flashing efforts wide from close range – but this was a night of near-misses and half-moments rather than iconic finishes.

Around him, Portugal’s midfield continued to circulate the ball without cutting through. For long stretches, their possession felt like an exercise in control rather than a tool to hurt the opposition.

The warning shot came from the other end. Cedric Bakambu almost flipped the story entirely when he cracked a shot against the post, a reminder that DR Congo were not just clinging on. They were a threat, inches away from producing one of the shocks of the group stage.

Heavy shoulders, harder path

Martinez spoke of the “weight on the shoulders” of his players, and it showed. This was a performance burdened by expectation, lacking the ruthlessness that separates contenders from passengers in a World Cup.

The emotional backdrop only added to the sense of unease. Portugal played in front of the parents of former teammate Diogo Jota, who died in a car crash in 2025 along with his brother. It was a poignant, painful presence in the stands, and the occasion never quite settled into the confident stride Portugal wanted.

Ronaldo, the country’s all-time leading scorer, stayed on in the hope that one flash of that familiar brilliance would spare them awkward questions. It never came. The questions will.

Because now the margin for error tightens.

Uzbekistan and Colombia await in Group K. Portugal will need far more incision, far more menace, if they are to turn this campaign into the coronation so many around Ronaldo crave. The World Cup remains the glaring gap in his glittering career, one of the last pieces of major silverware still out of reach.

They know the dangers. Morocco sent them home at the quarter-final stage in 2022. Their best finish remains third place, all the way back in 1966.

DR Congo, by contrast, leave Houston with momentum and a story to build on. A first goal. A first point. A reminder that history does not guarantee anything in this tournament.

Portugal still have time to put things right. The question, after a strangely subdued opening, is whether they can play like a team chasing the World Cup – and not just the shadow of a legend’s final shot at immortality.