2026 World Cup Debutants: Uniting the Islands — Cabo Verde ft. Emmanuel Charles D’Oliveira & Nuno Domingos

The FootPol Podcast has reached 100 episodes! 

To mark this special occasion, we return to this season's World Cup debutants series, this time focusing on Cabo Verde’s historic qualification for the 2026 tournament. Co-hosts Guy Burton and Francesco Belcastro are joined by Cape Verdean historian and writer Emmanuel Charles D’Oliveira and Nuno Domingos, senior researcher at the University of Lisbon, to analyse the country’s rise ahead of fixtures against Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia.

How did an Atlantic island nation of just over half a million people emerge as one of Africa’s most intriguing football stories? The discussion traces the game’s development from the colonial era under Portuguese rule through independence in 1975 and into the present, showing how football became embedded in national identity, state formation and diaspora politics. The episode explores Cabo Verde’s distinctive island-based league system, the decisive influence of migration and the Cape Verdean diaspora in Portugal and the Netherlands, debates over representation in the national team and the rapid expansion of women’s football. We also assess what World Cup qualification means for national pride, postcolonial identity and the wider visibility of Lusophone Africa on the global stage.