The World Cup’s best player so far is Leo Messi, but the best story is Cape Verde. The country of 500,000 people marooned in the Atlantic off the African coast has already held both Spain and Uruguay to draws. And the story could get even better: avoiding defeat against Saudi Arabia in Houston on Friday would take the Blue Sharks to the second round, probably against Messi’s Argentina. If they make it, Cape Verde won’t just defend and foul. This feelgood story features proper footballers.
The tournament has introduced Cape Verde to the world. The rain-starved archipelago “between the stars and the Atlantic”, as the national anthem has it, was uninhabited until Portuguese colonisers arrived in the 15th century and eventually made it a staging post in the transatlantic slave trade. Later it became a land of emigration. Now Cape Verde’s diasporas in New England, Portugal, Rotterdam and Senegal are gathering at watch parties to cheer on their team. Amid delirious dancing in the canteen of a Rotterdam sports club after the scoreless draw with Spain, the DJ yelled, “There are police at the door! They’re complaining — because we’re not partying hard enough!”
The diaspora is on the pitch too. Players include Dublin-born centre-back Roberto “Pico” Lopes, a former mortgage adviser recruited to the team on LinkedIn, son of a Cape Verdean cruise chef and an Irish mother who’s now a school secretary. Striker Dailon Livramento is the Rotterdam-born son of famed Cape Verdean singer Marizia. The six Rotterdammers in the squad outnumber players born in the country’s capital, Praia.