Cape Verde has qualified for the football World Cup for the first time in its history. The African national team, coached by the 55-year-old Pedro Leitao Brito aka Bubista, is, for now, the third absolute debutant in the world championship together with Fabio Cannavaro’s Uzbekistan and Jordan. Taking the pass for the World Cup scheduled in Canada, Mexico and the United States in the summer of 2026 by beating Eswatini, the Tubarões azuis (“blue sharks”, so nicknamed because of the fearsome aquatic predators that wallow in the waters of the islands off the Atlantic Ocean, blue due to the color of their shirts), have set a record (also touching another). Let’s find out what they are and how Cape Verde managed to write the history of football.
Where is Cape Verde and the small country’s records at the 2026 World Cup
The Cape Verde archipelago is located in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 570 kilometers off the coast of Senegalin West Africa. It is an archipelago of volcanic origin made up of 10 major islands and several smaller islets.
It is the smallest country ever to qualify for the Football World Cup in terms of geographical area (the archipelago made up of 10 islands occupies 4,033 km²) ahead of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.
And it is also the second smallest in terms of number of inhabitants (525,000 inhabitants according to the latest data from the World Bank): the record is held by Iceland which accomplished this feat in 2018, when the participants in the World Cup were only 32 and not 48 like the next edition.
How the African archipelago qualified for the 2026 World Cup
Cape Verde, currently in 73rd place in the FIFA rankings, is the sixth qualified African selection so far in addition to Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco and Tunisia (since the 2026 World Cup the places available for the African national teams have gone from 5 to 9 thanks to the new expanded format). The Blue Sharks finished first in group D thanks to a string of five consecutive victories, including the 1-0 at home against Cameroon, the big favorite on the eve, and completed the job on Monday against Eswatini in front of their home fans. This is the seventh attempt, since they tried in 2002, for the edition in Japan and South Korea, without success.
In truth, the Cape Verdeans had qualified for the play-offs for Brazil 2014, but the Federation was officially sanctioned by FIFA for having fielded the suspended Fernando Varela in the decisive match, Tunisia-Cape Verde 0-2, on 7 September 2013. The highest international body decreed the assignment of the 3-0 victory to the Tunisian national team, putting an end to Cape Verde’s hopes of qualify for the World Cup and sending the Tunisians to compete in the qualifying play-offs in place of the Cape Verdeans.
Football and other sports, what made Cape Verde stand out
Remaining in football, in its history Cape Verde has only managed to qualify for the final phase of the Africa Cup of Nations on four occasions, reaching the quarter-finals in 2013 and 2023 as its maximum achievement (it will not be there in the one which starts on 21 December). In his cabinet there is only one trophy, the Amilcar Cabral Cup (a tournament between West African national teams played between 1979 and 2007) won in 2000 in the final against Senegal.
The roster that qualified for the World Cup also includes some faces known to Italian football, such as Livramento, on loan from Verona to Casa Pia, who scored the decisive goal against Cameroon, and Jovane Cabral, formerly of Lazio and Salernitana. And there has been no shortage of champions of Cape Verdean origin in history, who however chose other national teams. Above all Nani, former Portuguese international and former Manchester United player who also played for Lazio, or Gelson Fernandes, former Manchester City player (some appearances in Serie A with Chievo and Udinese) who was born in Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, but chose to play for Switzerland. Patrick Vieira, former French international, now coach of Genoa, was born in Senegal from a community in Cape Verde, while Henrik Larsson, former Swedish international, has a father originally from Cape Verde.
The football feat of the Blue Sharks adds to another recent sporting success, namely the flyweight bronze won in Paris 2024 by boxer David Pina, the first Olympic medal in the country’s history. Among the most famous sportsmen of Cape Verde there is also the basketball player Walter Tavares of Real Madrid who won the Spanish championship 5 times and the Euroleague twice with the Los Blancos shirt, after playing a few years in the NBA.
