With a population of just 525,000, Cabo Verde is poised to become the second-smallest nation to compete in a FIFA World Cup™ after Iceland, who participated at Russia 2018.
Following their landmark 1-0 victory over Cameroon earlier this month, the Blue Sharks have a four-point cushion at the top of Group D in African qualifying for the FIFA World Cup 26™ with just two fixtures remaining. With one of those against bottom-placed Eswatini, Cabo Verde’s hopes of reaching their first-ever global finals are fast becoming a reality.
It is a remarkable turnaround for Bubista’s men, who have bounced back in some style from their hugely-disappointing CAF Africa Cup of Nations 2025 qualification campaign to put themselves on the brink of football’s biggest stage.
Cabo Verde defender Steven Moreira, who plays for Major League Soccer (MLS) club Columbus Crew, spoke to FIFA about switching allegiances from France, the crucial win over Cameroon and the far-reaching impact playing at the World Cup would have on the country.
Steven Moreira: I can’t describe it… it is amazing but we know the job is not done. We have done the most difficult part and now we have two games to focus on it, and hopefully we can enjoy it afterwards. For sure, after the game against Cameroon, it was very exciting but for now the job is not done.
We knew the game against Cameroon was very important, especially because they were one point behind. Now we know with the last two games, even if we lose one game we still have a big, big chance to qualify.
The mood is crazy. You can see the people are very happy, proud and excited. Hopefully we will make everybody prouder in two weeks.
After Cameroon it was so crazy, so I don’t know if it will be more than that. Hopefully it will but now we have to finish the job.
Everything will change. It is a very small country and for business and tourism, hopefully more people will come to see how beautiful the country is.
After the African Cup of Nations qualifying, we thought we could do really big things with this team. We are very proud and we thought, ‘Now we have to make it to the World Cup.’ We have Cameroon, Libya and Angola [in the group], but we knew we had a good team and our only focus was the World Cup from that moment on.
They were calling me when I was about 17 to play over there, but at that moment I was with the France national team and everything was different. At the time it wasn’t a good moment to go to Cabo Verde. I was waiting to see what would happen in my career, but when I came to play in MLS I thought it was a good moment to go over there. And everything is feeling amazing for me, it is perfect… it was the best choice.
I really hope that it will be one of the best World Cups ever. Some people think America is not about soccer and is about [American] football and basketball. But MLS is going crazy, the facilities are so nice. Because I play here, if can I take part in the World Cup with my country (in the USA) it would be amazing.
