Cape Verde committed one foul in ninety minutes, cleared eleven balls through Pico Lopes alone, and let goalkeeper Vozinha collect seven saves behind a back four that never broke its outline. Cross completion drops five points above 20 deliveries.

Spain hit all three warning signs – low completion, high headed-shot share, collapsing shot-from-cross rate – and kept delivering anyway. Their 20.5 percent completion sat below the tournament average, 33 percent of their shots were headers, and only 7.7 percent of crosses produced a shot. League data, tournament data, and academic research all show the same inflection, and a four-check framework built from those numbers can flag the moment the crossing route closes.