ANKARA
\nRyan Mendes is not even a household name in Turkey, where he plays for second division Igdir, but next summer, football fans around the world will be well aware of both him and his team.
\nThe 35-year-old is captain of the Cape Verde national team and was at the heart of their 3-0 win over Eswatini last week which booked them a first-ever appearance at the World Cup.
\nThis was no freak occurrence as Cape Verde, who lean heavily on their Portuguese colonial past for a supply of players, are a very decent side.
\nAt the last Africa Cup of Nations they topped their group, which included Ghana, reaching the quarter-finals where they lost on penalties to South Africa.
\nIn the 2026 World Cup qualifying they again topped their group, this time finishing ahead of the once-mighty Cameroon.
\n\u201cWe have taken part in four African Cup of Nations (CAN) tournaments and we were also very close to qualifying for the 2014 World Cup,\u201d Mendes told AFP.
\n\u201cA lot has been achieved over the years. And today, we can say that this is the logical outcome.\u201d
\nBehind the level-headed pragmatic response, though, lies a joyful incredulity that triggered a carnival-like atmosphere in the streets of the capital Praia at the end of last week\u2019s victory.
\n\u201cHonestly, I still can\u2019t believe what we\u2019ve achieved,\u201d said Mendes, who began his career in France with Le Havre and Lille and also had a spell in England with Nottingham Forest.
\n\u201cWhen I was little, I used to dream about Ronaldo\u2019s Brazil and all the great football nations, and I dreamed of being there one day too. \u201cBut what we experienced on Monday at home was something we had never seen before.
\n\u201cIt was magnificent, it was completely crazy. Everyone is so happy, the whole nation, whether in Cape
\nVerde or in the diaspora. Just talking about it gives me goosebumps.\u201d
\nWith a population of around 525,000, the small archipelago off the coast of Senegal will become the second least populous country to participate in a World Cup after Iceland, and the smallest in terms of surface area.
\nThey may not be blessed with star names like Ronaldo but Mendes is certain that the Blue Sharks can make a mark at the tournament.
\n\u201cOne thing\u2019s for sure: we\u2019re not going there just to play three games and come home,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t know our group yet but we want to make a good impression and play good football because that\u2019s what we love most.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to try to do our job and do what we know how to do.
\n\u201cWe want to live our story and write it ourselves. I hope it will be even better than our qualification.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA Ryan Mendes is not even a household name in Turkey, where he plays for second division Igdir, but next summer, football fans around the world will be well aware of both him and his team. The 35-year-old is captain of the Cape Verde national team and was at the heart of their 3-0 win …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88514,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88503\/revisions\/88514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}