A football club in Turkey’s second division has supplied two captains at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with one leading Cape Verde to a draw against defending European champion Spain and the other captaining Curaçao in its tournament debut.
Ryan Mendes and Leandro Bacuna play for Iğdır FK, a club based in Turkey’s easternmost province that competes in the TFF First League, the second level of Turkish football.
Mendes, a 36-year-old winger, wore the captain’s armband as Cape Verde held Spain to a 0-0 draw Monday in Atlanta in one of the tournament’s biggest surprises so far.
Cape Verde was playing its first World Cup match against a Spain squad made up of players from clubs including Barcelona, Manchester City, Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain.
Spain controlled nearly 75 percent of possession and attempted 27 shots but failed to score against a team representing an Atlantic island country with a population of about 500,000.
Goalkeeper Vozinha, 40, made a series of saves and was named player of the match, while Mendes led the team from the front and helped Cape Verde earn the first World Cup point in its history.
The result drew more attention to Iğdır FK after Bacuna, a 34-year-old midfielder, captained Curaçao against Germany a day earlier.
Curaçao, the smallest country ever to compete at the World Cup, scored in its tournament debut but lost the Group E match 7-1 in Houston.
The Caribbean country has a population of about 160,000, smaller than many cities represented by professional football clubs.
Bacuna has played for Curaçao since 2016 and previously spent several seasons in English football with Aston Villa, Reading, Cardiff City and Watford.
Mendes is Cape Verde’s record appearance holder and leading scorer. He has played in France, England, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey during a career spanning more than 15 years.
Both players joined Iğdır FK after careers that included football at higher levels, but their presence at the World Cup has given the Turkish second-tier club an unusual distinction.
Few clubs outside the major European leagues have provided more than one national team captain at the tournament, while Iğdır FK has two leading countries making their World Cup debuts.