China’s role in Cabo Verde’s historic World Cup draw with Spain

On Monday, thousands of Cabo Verdeans poured out onto the streets of their capital, Praia, to celebrate the national football team’s shock draw against Spain at the World Cup, beating drums, blowing horns and dancing.

For Cabo Verde, an archipelago country of 500,000 people located off the coast of West Africa, a stalemate with former World Cup champions is as good as a win. President Jose Maria Neves described it as a defining moment for the country, which became independent from Portugal in 1975.

“If today, 50 years later, we are at the World Cup, we have already proven that we are a viable nation,” he wrote on Facebook, following the match in the US city of Atlanta.

Yet, the story of the former colony’s footballing achievements is not complete without mentioning China’s role in building the country’s sports infrastructure.

This included the 15,000-capacity Estadio Nacional de Cabo Verde, which was completed in 2014. The stadium was financed by Beijing and built by a Chinese state-owned contractor. This followed Cabo Verde’s first appearance at the African Cup of Nations in 2013, when the national team managed to make it to the quarter-finals for the first time.

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The stadium became the national team’s home turf, from which it has launched subsequent qualifying campaigns. The country has since made it to three more African Cup of Nations tournaments, reaching the knockout stages twice. The Blue Sharks, as the national team is known, qualified for the World Cup by beating eSwatini at the stadium in October 2025.