The jubilant celebrations at the Estadio Nacional de Praia in October when Cabo Verde qualified for the FIFA World Cup™ had already hinted that Ryan Mendes had seen a dream become reality. However, everything will start to feel real on Friday when the country’s name is revealed alongside the other qualifiers in the draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™.
“As time goes on, you begin to realise what you’ve achieved,” the Blue Sharks winger told FIFA in an exclusive interview. “Cabo Verde are going to the World Cup and it’s incredible. We’re so happy now that we’ve stamped our ticket there.”
In an ever-more competitive African landscape, the CAF qualifiers confirmed some of the usual suspects for next year’s World Cup — but also saw heavyweights like Cameroon and Nigeria miss out, with Cabo Verde emerging as the surprise package. The Cabo Verdeans will be the only African side making their debut in the competition, but their place at next year’s competition is no accident. The island’s national team has managed to retain its simplicity and good spirit — two essential ingredients in its recent successes — as the team progressed on the international scene.
“Us Cabo Verdeans are like that. We’ve always lived well together, actually, across all the generations I’ve known,” said Mendes. “Ever since 2010 that I’ve been here, it hasn’t changed. The difference now is that there is a little more quality, and you can see that on the pitch. But on a human level, it’s always been the same.”
The added quality within the Cabo Verde squad is embodied above all by talented players who seized their opportunity — none more so than Dailon Livramento. With four goals to his name during qualifiers, the Hellas Verona FC player, on loan from Portuguese side Casa Pia, has emerged as one of the team’s stand-out players that has helped propel the side to their first-ever World Cup.
“Dailon, I remember that he was all shy when he arrived and he needed a little bit of time to adapt,” recalled Mendes. “I remember it well. I said to him, ‘Don’t worry, you have the ability. It’s going to happen so just be patient and stay calm.’ Now he’s scoring goals, and usually important goals, so it’s good for both us and him and he just needs to keep it going. In any case, we’re happy to have him.”
The coming weeks and months promise to be unusual for not only the players, but also for the 550,000 inhabitants of the African island. The feeling of anticipation will mingle with the demands of preparation — and though the tournament is still six months away, it already feels as if the World Cup is right on the doorstep.
“The federation will do everything possible to ensure we are as prepared as possible. We’ll have some friendlies to help us warm up,” the 35-year-old explained. “On a personal level, of course I hope to be there injury-free and in good form. In fact, we players just have to stay in shape, take good care of ourselves at our clubs, and when we come here, we’ll have to do our best as usual and prepare well, because it’ll be here before we know it.”
As far as the ambitions of one of the World Cup’s newest arrivals are concerned, Mendes isn’t making any grand plans just yet. Like the other nations, he’s waiting in anticipation to find out Cabo Verde’s schedule for the World Cup group stage. “Of course, we need to have a goal, but first we need to know who we’re going to be playing against, and then we can talk about it,” he said. “What we want, in any case, is to enjoy this competition, which I think will be the best ever, because the next World Cup is always better than the last one.”
As for the draw, Mendes will be watching it closely, but does the winger have any preference when it comes to the teams Cabo Verde could come up against? As a child, the Igdir FK player was a big supporter of Brazil
“Brazil would be cool,” he answered with a smile. “But what we really want is just to draw a big nation, whether it’s France, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal or Germany… and then we’ll see about the others. But yes, I’d really like to have one of those teams in our group.”
The most beautiful part of this remarkable story is that Mendes already understands what it means for Cabo Verdeans who, at every previous World Cup, had to choose another nation to support. This time, they won’t need to think twice about which colours to wear when the tournament kicks off
“It’s a dream for us as footballers,” he added. “We have a close relationship with the Cabo Verdean people, and now they’ll be able to watch their team compete in the World Cup. Whether you’re at home or at work, in Cabo Verde or Paris, for example, if you go to a bar and the World Cup is on, as a Cabo Verdean, you can say to yourself, ‘Today, my team is playing against France or Brazil…’. That was what we wanted to do.”
Regardless of what ultimately happens to the Blue Sharks in the final phase, just qualifying for the tournament can be considered a success even before the draw.
“I joined the national team 15 years ago, and back then we couldn’t even make it into the group stages to take part in the qualifiers. People don’t know how far we’ve come… after the competition, the people of Cabo Verde will be able to proudly say that they competed at a World Cup. That was unthinkable before,” he concluded.
Images : CAF
