Cape Verde 2013-13 Home
Cape Verde 2015-17 Away
Now here’s a spectacular shirt! Tepa really put in effort for Cape Verde and it shows, with the flag colours clearly shown, blue and red nicely contrasting. The stitching being bright yellow is slightly strange, but somehow works, stars are splayed across the shoulders like a Mario level and the FA badge is a little bonkers. One of the best shirts you’ll see around, and a massive improvement on their modern Adidas templates for sure. The greatest thing is that, thinking like this, you don’t end up thinking that if looks like it was a blue shirt before anyone who complained about the design was fed into a wood chipper right by it.
Used in the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign, Cape Verde were drawn in a group with Tunisia, Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea. An away loss to Sierra Leone was frustrating but the real issue was the away game in Tunisia. Their win was awarded to Tunisia for them fielding an ineligible player, but it was hugely debated, with the FA having checked with FIFA beforehand. Tunisia went on to lose to a Cameroon side that Cape Verde had recently beaten and Cape Verde have since lost their golden generation.
Next up is this nice away shirt by Lacatoni. Great sublimated patterned detail across the front and back, though detail that looks a little too much like a noughts and crosses grid, is added to with some red accenting. Sleeve cuffs are fully elasticated while the collar isn’t, which is very strange, but it has the flag on the back and that mad FA logo embroidered on the front. Certainly not a shirt to complain about.
Used in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Cape Verde didn’t exactly live up to the high of 2014. Starting in the 2nd round, they edged Kenya 2-1 over two legs to reach the 3rd one. There, as part of a group, they beat South Africa 2-1 home and away but lost comfortably to Senegal and Burkina Faso in all their other games (3 x 2-0 and 1 x 4-0).
Technically these campaigns were comparatively common for Cape Verde, middle of the road throughout World Cup qualifiers, always having won half or just less than half of their games. However they’ve managed a little more in AFCON, with qualification in their golden era for 2013 and 2015. Undefeated in both group stages, they reached the quarter-finals in 2013 to be knocked out by Ghana and dropped out on goals scored in 2015. They’ve twice competed in the WAFU Nations Cup, losing the lower plate competition on penalties in 2019, but never competed in the CHAN competition.
Even less impact has been made by the women’s side, which just about exists. 1 win from 5 in the 2020 WAFU Women’s championship along with a pair of friendlies is all they have to their name. Yet to compete in any fully continental competition to date. Youth teams also aren’t common, the small population and tricky travel logistics helping contribute to their only youth appearance seeming to be the men’s 2019 U17 qualifiers where they beat Mauritania and drew with Guinea to qualify for the knockout stage of the WAFU qualifiers where Senegal annihilated them 6-0.
Two attempts have been made to attend the African Futsal Championship, but they’ve withdrawn both times without playing a game, and beach soccer appearances have been patchy. They beat Mozambique in 2007 and Ivory Coast on penalties in 2008 but next appeared for 2016 qualifiers where they lost 12-4 on aggregate to Senegal.
Not expected to qualify for 2022 (drawn in a group with Nigeria) they should put in a typical respectable performance, with Liberia and Central Africa Republic making up the rest of the group.
Adam's National Shirt Collection 