The expansion of the FIFA World Cup™ to 48 teams has allowed more teams to dream of qualifying for the tournament and, for the remote island nation of Cabo Verde, what once would have been fantasy is close to becoming reality. A win at home to Eswatini on Monday, 13 October will send the Blue Sharks to their first FIFA World Cup™ as winners of African qualifying Group D and make Cabo Verde second only to Iceland as the country with the smallest population to participate at the tournament. It will not have happened by accident, either. Founded in 1982 and a FIFA member since 1986, the Cabo Verdean Football Association (FCF) has worked hard to develop football in the country. FIFA Forward funding has helped this development. National team operations have been supported by the funding, while artificial pitches in the Santa Cruz municipality on Santiago island have benefitted multiple teams in the region and provided more opportunities for young people to play.

FIFA Forward funding also supported the renovation of the Adérito Sena Stadium, on the island of São Vicente, with upgraded dressing rooms and spectator-friendly grounds to enable the national team to host a qualifier for the FIFA World Cup 2022™. The FCF’s headquarters and training centre have been upgraded and, most recently, Cabo Verde has benefitted from FIFA’s support by participating in the FIFA Series — a pilot project designed to facilitate friendly matches between teams of different confederations, who don’t usually get the chance to play each other.

With kick-off approaching, the excitement in the island nation is palpable, with the government declaring a half-day across the nation of around 525,000 to give everyone a chance to watch the possibility of history being made. Cabo Verde is a football-loving country, so much so that fans lined the route to the airport when the team left for their previous qualifier away to Libya, which ended in a thrilling 3-3 draw. Tickets for the game at the Estádio Nacional sold out in record time.

“Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps, because it’ll be incredible,” said Victor Hugo Fortes, a sports journalist and former international basketball player. “We celebrated 50 years of independence this year, so it’d be incredible to crown that milestone with such a great achievement – reaching the (FIFA) World Cup for the first time.” If they qualify, Cabo Verde will follow in the footsteps of Jordan and Uzbekistan who have already made sure of their place at the FIFA World Cup for the first time. Meanwhile, teams from CAF, Concacaf and OFC, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Curacao, Gabon, Madagascar, New Caledonia, Suriname and Uganda, are all nurturing dreams of a debut at the tournament, either directly as winners of their qualifying group or through the FIFA Play-Off Tournament in March 2026.

The Blue Sharks had to wait until 2013 for their debut at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations but have now made four appearances and reached the quarter-finals of the 2023 edition, only losing on penalties to South Africa. The country’s remote geographic location and arid climate, with few natural resources, make the team’s progress all the more remarkable.

“The saying goes that, ‘We learned to survive on nothing,’ because the country is dry, it doesn’t rain often, and it’s arid,” said Victor Hugo, who played in the Cabo Verde basketball team which won a bronze medal at the African Basketball Championship in 2007. “We do lack natural resources, but we still have the sea and the sun, and I believe that’s what defines us. We’ve endured for so long that we’ve grown tougher. And that same resilience drives the players on the pitch today, as well as the supporters who stand with the national team, helping us achieve those victories.” Players who were born in the country or are of Cabo Verdean descent have shone at previous FIFA World Cup tournaments, such as Nani (Portugal), Patrick Vieira (France) and Gelson Fernandes (Switzerland).

But having their own team at the tournament would bring great joy to the country. “We live and breathe football here. We support teams and national teams from all over, and now we have the opportunity to support our own national team. So, that’s something you can’t describe,” said Cristiano Barbosa, a Cape Verdean photographer, who witnessed and recorded one of the country’s proudest sporting moments when Daniel Varela de Pina won their first-ever Olympic medal, claiming bronze in the men’s flyweight boxing in Paris in 2024. “We’ve seen Cabo Verdeans excel in other sports recently but, for football, I think it’s more special. And for kids that are used to playing football ever since they started walking – we play with everything we find on the street and at school – so for them to see the national team on television, playing the (FIFA) World Cup,” he said. “It’s something that I’m sure they feel (is) really special [to see] the country on the big stage.”