Cabo Verde: 1st time Qualifier, small time Island
The national football team of a country with a population of 525,000, a member of FIFA since 1986, a country where football stadiums were empty until recently, achieved an incredible historic success, with one Irish player in the selection found on social media, becoming the second smallest country to ever go to the World Cup after Iceland.
“Ilha feliz”, the happy island, is the name for Cape Verde, an archipelago of 10 islands in the Atlantic Ocean that has about 525,000 inhabitants according to the World Bank.
No one among them ever dreamed that they would one night celebrate a historic World Cup qualification.
With a 3-0 triumph against Eswatini, this team secured a guaranteed participation in the World Cup next year, ahead of teams such as Cameroon, Libya, and Angola.
Led by coach Pedro Leitao Brito, known only as Bubista, the Cape Verdean footballers, a national team founded just three years after the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975, performed a great miracle and finished first in their qualifying group D.
In Africa, the qualification process is simple and straightforward: the winners of the six-team group go directly to the World Cup.
Of course, there is also a play-off: if you are among the four best second-placed teams from nine groups, you will have to play a semi-final in a play-off against an African team, and if you win one or two matches against a team from another confederation.
The group of Cape Verde, which finished first with 23 points, also included Cameroon, Libya, Angola, Mauritius, and Eswatini.
The heroes of this story, after a 0-0 home draw with Angola, lost to Eswatini 2-0 and suffered a 1-4 debacle against Cameroon. Then they started collecting points: with two 1-0 wins each against Libya and Mauritius, and a 2-1 triumph against Angola.
And Cameroon, in the meantime, was losing points away against Libya and Angola and even to the outsider Eswatini.
The main direct duel was in the 8th round when Cape Verde defeated Cameroon at home 1:0 and practically escaped the table of their main rival.
Finally, in the last round last night, Cape Verde celebrated a convincing 3-0 against Eswatini with goals from Dylon Livramento, who is a center forward on loan from Verona to the Portuguese club Casa Pia, Willy Semedo from Cypriot Omonia in the 54th minute, and at the end of the duel with a goal by the 37-year-old stopper from Portuguese Torense, Stopira.
The historic victory was recorded at the stadium that holds 15,000 spectators and has a roof over only one stand.
The arena is new, opened 11 years ago.
Cape Verde gained independence from Portugal in 1975. Seven years later, their football federation was formed, and three years later, they were admitted to FIFA.
However, they did not play their first World Cup qualifiers until the 2000s for the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, where they were eliminated in the play-offs by Algeria (0:0, 2:0).
In the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, they were second-to-last in the table.
In the next two qualifying rounds, they were behind Cameroon and Tunisia.
For the 2018 World Cup in Russia, they finished behind Senegal and Burkina Faso. Four years later, they did not make it to the World Cup again, after finishing behind Nigeria, although they were only two points behind in second place, and in the last round, they played against the Nigerians on the road and drew 1:1.
They played in the African Cup of Nations four times and advanced three times through the groups. They debuted only in 2013, when they were more successful than Morocco and Angola in the group, but lost to Ghana in the quarterfinals.
After two years, they reached the knockout stage, and in 2021, they were eliminated in extra time in the 1/8 finals by Senegal.
At the 2023 CAN, Cape Verde achieved excellent results after overcoming Egypt, Ghana, and Mozambique in the group, and then defeating Mauritania in the playoff. In the 1/4 finals, they were eliminated on penalties by South Africa:
they missed four out of five shots.
In 2025, they did not qualify for the African Cup of Nations (last place in a group with Egypt, Botswana, and Mauritania),
but they nevertheless achieved the lifelong dream of an entire nation – to qualify for the 2026 World Cup!
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