Cape Verde: half a million inhabitants spread across a dozen islands in the archipelago, almost a million in diaspora. And considerable soft power, especially after recent performances at the World Cup. On a demographic scale, it's as if one of Antananarivo's six districts matched Spain, Europe's reigning champions, and pushed Argentina, world champions, into extra time. Forgotten that the country has no major natural resources and that even water is precious there. The whole world saw above all a squadron of warriors carrying high the colors of a country from nowhere (in the Atlantic, five hundred kilometers from Africa, "opposite" Senegal). They came to play football, without outlandish claims, certainly not waving a flag that isn't theirs, nor pretending to defend a cause that doesn't concern them. Eminently likeable people. Japan: sportingly, elimination in added time in the Round of 16 against Brazil. But in the stands, a spotless reputation as impeccable as the zeal shown by the Japanese contingent in cleaning up all the dirt and waste the average supporter might bring. Beyond other already quite sympathetic aspects, long recognized, here are the Japanese again earning sympathy and respect, quite innocently giving a lesson in civility to the watching world. Germany: some analysts see in the Mannschaft's successive World Cup failures a reflection of Germany's general decline. Volkswagen, Europe's leading automaker, is considering nothing less than reducing annual production and eliminating up to half its models, resulting in 100,000 job losses and closure of historic factories. What if the collapse in the Chinese market marked a new commercial-industrial era? After 1945 and World War II, Made in Germany embodied the conversion into soft power of former military-industrial supremacy. An existential question that a "mere" World Cup might have crystallized.