3 min readUpdated: Jun 7, 2026 06:04 PM IST
“If you write me, I’ll write you…
If you forget me, I’ll forget you”
Thus goes the melancholic Morna music from Cape Verde, strains of the song “Sodade” which will ring out at their FIFA World Cup games against Spain, Uruguay and Saudi Arabia.
According to Bdnews24.com, the filk song “remembers the tens of thousands of emigrés who have left these 10 islands sprinkled off the coast of West Africa for work and opportunities abroad.”
Their football team is made up of children and grandchildren of these same populations that left the islands for livelihood. The Blue Sharks who won 7 of their 10 qualifying games, are made up of similarly foreign-based players, even as head coach Pedro Leitão Brito known as Bubista — who was named Africa’s Coach of the Year last year and is better known by his nickname, Bubista — tries to weld together a unit capable of big upsets.
Having shocked Cameroon in Qualis, he is entitled to dream more. Bubista told CNN, “We want to make an impact on the tournament for our people. We want to show everyone watching that, yes, we’re a small country, but we can play against the big teams. We know it’s hard but we want to show that nothing is impossible.”
While football looks ahead, morna music leans on nostalgia, yearning and hone sickness. Its definitive icon was Cesaria Evora, who sang barefeet, smoked and drank on stage in intermissions and went on to influence Madonna.
Sodade (or Saudade, if you dig Goan jazz or blues), is expected to ring out when Cape Verde play at the World Cup, with support from the long setted Cape Verdean community of Rhode Island.
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Only direct flight to Rhode Island
Cape Verde, an archipelago nation of 6 lakh people will hugely depend on football players born overseas at their World Cup debut. These include Irish-born centre-back Roberto Lopes, who has an Irish mother and Cape Verdean father, and French-born Logan Costa, who turns out for Villarreal in Spain.
But the country’s 19th century maritime ties with hosts USA go back before football to whaling times. There are multiple fights via Europe, but the only direct flight to the United States lands in Providence, Rhode Island – where a large Cape Verdean community lives today.
The Ocean State Media YouTube channel delves into the whaling ties of 1800s when ships sailing across the Atlantic recruited skilled mariners and sailors from the islands like Brava of Cape Verde. Once they settled, the families followed, building Homes awayfrom Homes in Fox Point. Agricultural labourers like cranberry pickers also lived in America seadonally, as per Ocean State Media. Industrial jobs at the waterfront and factories, brought another wave.
