By Mark Gleeson
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) -Cape Verde qualified for the World Cup on Monday, beating Eswatini 3-0 in their last group match to top the standings ahead of Cameroon and complete a fairytale campaign.
The wind-swept West African archipelago overcame first-half nerves to win in Praia with second-half goals from Dailon Livramento, Willy Semedo and veteran Stopira and book a first-ever appearance at the finals.
They started two points ahead of Cameroon, whose eight previous World Cup finals appearances are the most by an African country. Cape Verde finished Group D on 23 points, four ahead of Cameroon, who were held at home to a goalless draw by Angola.
Cape Verde rarely played international football some 25 years ago but now head to next year’s finals in North America as one of the nine African representatives.
They join Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and Ghana who have qualified already.
Livramento took advantage of Eswatini’s failure to clear to steer home the ball from close range three minutes into the second half while Semedo also had a tap-in for the second six minutes later.
Stopira, 37, had only come on as a late substitute as an acknowledgement of his long service with the team since 2008, and put a cherry on the cake with a stoppage-time goal.
The island’s 600,000 inhabitants had been given the day off to support their team but there was little to cheer in a tentative first half before Livramento scored. After that, the celebrations could not be contained.
Cape Verde are the second smallest country to qualify for the World Cup after Iceland, who competed in Russia in 2018.
Cameroon will likely advance to the playoffs for the four best runners-up across the nine African qualifying groups but were jeered off in Yaounde after failure to beat Angola whose 39-year-old goalkeeper Hugo Marques made several telling stops.
TUNISIA UNBEATEN AND DID NOT CONCEDE A GOAL
Earlier on Monday, Tunisia completed their World Cup qualifying campaign without conceding a goal as they beat Namibia 3-0 in their final Group H game.
They ended the campaign unbeaten with nine wins from their 10 games, scoring 22 goals.
A first-half penalty in Tunis converted by Ali El Abdi was followed by second-half strikes from Hannibal Mejbri and captain Ferjani Sassi.
Namibia finished second in the group despite the defeat, their third in the last four qualifiers.
But they do not have enough points to finish as one of the best four group runners-up. They were 13 points adrift of Tunisia, who had already secured their place in the finals.
Liberia finished third in the group after a 1-1 draw at Equatorial Guinea, who were fielding a new-look team and with a new coach after a player strike meant they did not travel for last week’s qualifier in Malawi.
A 62nd-minute penalty from Portuguese-based striker Ronald Lumungo earned Sao Tome e Principe their first points of the campaign as they edged Malawi 1-0.
It ended a run of 18 winless matches for the tiny island nation, who are 195th in the world rankings.
(Editing by Ed Osmond and Christian Radnedge)
