Team Guides – Group H: Cape Verde make history, Spain and Uruguay aim for seamless knockout qualification

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Spain arrive as title favourites in Group H. Uruguay’s proud World Cup tradition meets Cape Verde’s historic debut, creating a group where football’s past and future collide.

Cape VerdeThe plan“Let’s have some fun. We got ourselves into the World Cup, now it’s time to have fun together.” – Dailon Livramento

The Blue Sharks of Cape Verde are swimming in completely uncharted waters as they make their World Cup debut, but you wouldn’t want to bet against them. The tiny archipelago off the coast of West Africa only played their first World Cup Qualifier in 2003, but if any team can handle the pressure of a meteoric rise to the top of world football it is Cape Verde. After all, the country’s national slogan – morabeza – roughly translates to “no stress”. They will need that mentality as they take on Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia in group H.

It is an eclectic group of players that makes up the squad assembled by Pedro Leitão Brito, known as Bubista. The 26-man group represents 25 clubs from 14 countries and has more players born in Rotterdam (six) than in Cape Verde’s capital, Praia. But for a nation built on immigration, navigating complex identities and languages isn’t a challenge, it’s something to be embraced.

“Unity among people with different mindsets and ways of life can only be achieved by respecting the uniqueness of each player,” Bubista told The Guardian after qualification was sealed in front of a raucous home crowd in Praia.

A settled World Cup squad has been together for the best part of half a decade. While being physical and happy to defend, the Blue Sharks embrace the island-inspired football that is embodied in such technical forwards as Ryan Mendes, Willy Semedo and Jovane Cabral. “Just because we’re a small nation doesn’t mean we give up possession,” the Irish-born Shamrock Rovers centre-back Pico Lopes told the On The Whistle Podcast. “We always have that quality and sort of killer instinct we want in the attacking areas.”

Perhaps the only question hanging over the team is the fitness of Logan Costa. The Villarreal centre-back is arguably the one elite player in a team full of nomadic footballers, but the French-born defender has yet to play a single minute of football this season after tearing his ACL last summer.

Bubista comes from a humble background. His father split time between being a lift operator and a shepherd while his mother took care of their 10 children on Boa Vista island. “The family was all [about] education, they put all of their kids through ed