Cape Verde sways to the sound of morna, a homegrown folk music laced with melancholy, longing and soul. Morna’s most famous song, “Sodade,” remembers the tens of thousands of emigr\u00e9s who have left these 10 islands sprinkled off the coast of West Africa for work and opportunities \u200babroad.<\/p>\n
“If you write me, I’ll write you,” the song’s lyrics go. “If you forget me, I’ll forget you.”<\/p>\n
In the next few weeks, Cape \u200cVerdeans hope their sense of nostalgia will turn to celebration. Their eyes are on the national soccer team, which is packed full of stars whose parents or even grandparents left Cape Verde years ago but who still consider the islands home.<\/p>\n
In the next few weeks, Cape \u200cVerdeans hope their sense of nostalgia will turn to celebration. Their eyes are on the national soccer team, which is packed full of stars whose parents or even grandparents left Cape Verde years ago but who still consider the islands home.<\/p>\n
The Blue Sharks, as the team is known, is one of the surprise qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup. With fewer than 600 000 inhabitants, \u200bCape Verde is the third smallest country by population to ever reach the world’s biggest sporting event (after Iceland in 2018 and Curacao, also in \u200b2026).<\/p>\n
Cape Verde’s national team combines local talent with a raft of foreign-born players, including centre-back Roberto Lopes, who was born \u2060in Ireland to an Irish mother and Cape Verdean father, and Logan Costa, who was born in France to Cape Verdean parents and plays for Villarreal in \u200bSpain.<\/p>\n
The combination of local and international talent has proven magically effective. Cape Verde won seven of their 10 games in World Cup qualifiers, losing just once and scoring \u200ba huge upset win at home against African heavyweights Cameroon.<\/p>\n
The World Cup will be another level. Ranked 69th in the world, the Blue Sharks will face tournament favourites Spain, two-time World Cup winners Uruguay and Saudi Arabia (a relative minnow but still ranked higher at 61st) in the group stage.
\nBut locals have faith.<\/p>\n
“I’m very proud,” said Anton Delgado, 25, after spending a recent \u200bSunday afternoon with friends in a bar in Mindelo, a city on the island of S\u00e3o Vicente. “It’s a marvel. I’ve been waiting years for this. We have \u200breal hope that we can win a game or even two.”<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35279,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-36423","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Cape Verde's national team combines local talent with a raft of foreign-born players","published_date":"","news_description":"Cape Verde's national team combines local talent with a raft of foreign-born players","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36424,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36423\/revisions\/36424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}