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Cape Verde voyage into the unknown:

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The Cameroon Stade Omnisport isn’t a stadium that’s on a par with Wembley or Anfield in terms of reputation or history, then again Wembley had its heart surgically removed after it’s long and drawn out face lift, but to the people of Cape Verde that stadium will forever be greeted with a wide and warm grin. On the 14th of October 2012 Cape Verde beat Cameroon 3-2 on aggregate after a 2-1 victory was not enough for the giants of African football. It was a historic victory that means Cape Verde will be competing in their first ever tournament the Africa Cup of Nations in January 2013.

On top of that the first match they play will be the first of the tournament against the hosts South Africa and the whole African continent will be watching them. In terms of pressure the Cape Verde islands will have higher expectations after knocking out the 4 times champions of Africa Cameroon but the pressure will be a lot worse for the South African players, especially after the recent match fixing scandal which have lead to the president of the South African Football Association and some officials to take a ‘voluntary leave of absence’.

Either way the 500,000 people living on the small islands about 300 miles off the mid-Atlantic coast will no doubt be huddling round TV sets to watch the Blue Sharks do what they can in this years African cup of nations.

Given the tough group they have been given including hosts South Africa, 1976 winners Morocco and Angola, advancement from the group stage will be greeted in a similar fashion to Manchester City winning the title last summer. Although according to the Fifa rankings Cape Verde are highest in their group, of course that would mean England, Switzerland and the Ivory Coast are all better than Brazil.

A lot of credit for the evolution of the Cape Verde team must go to manager Lucio Antunes. Having been involved in the youth set up of the national team on a part time basis whilst working as an air traffic controller, he was given the manager’s job in 2010 replacing Portuguese Joao de Deus. Antunes has integrated many players from the youth set up he worked with into the current squad and encourages them to play in Europe in order to raise their professionalism and fitness. The team’s dead ball specialist who scored this wonderful goal against Cameroon in the teams second leg match is Heldon ‘Nhuck’ Ramos and is one of the players to make a successful transition into Europe with Maritimo.

Centre back Fernando Varela has told the media to “expect rigour and hard work” from his team. A preview of this was shown in the teams recent 0-0 with Nigeria in a friendly pitting  Cape Verde’s colossal captain Nando Maria Neves against Chelsea winger Victor Moses and winning.

The minnows of this tournament will be wiping their bleary eyes when they walk onto the pitch at Soccer City on Saturday and if you want to see any match reports, player profiles or previews of games then go to BlueSharks13.tumblr.com where you can find me giving you all the information you need to know about the Cape Verde islands breaking their tournament cherry in South Africa.

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