When Cape Verde walked onto the pitch to face Spain at the 2026 FIFA World Cup and walked away with a goalless draw, the message echoed far beyond the Atlantic. Here was a nation of just over 525,000 people—fewer than the population of Kigali—holding one of the world's football giants to a stalemate after topping a demanding World Cup qualifying group ahead of Cameroon. Weeks earlier, Curaçao, an island of only 156,000 people, had become the smallest nation ever to qualify for a FIFA World Cup. Suddenly, the familiar arguments about population, size and limited resources no longer held much weight. ALSO READ: How Cape Verde built one of Africa's most admired football projects For Rwanda, this should not be viewed as fantasy. It should be seen as a blueprint. What these nations have in common is not luck, but vision. Curaçao built its squad by systematically recruiting players from its diaspora—footballers of Curaçaoan heritage raised in the Netherlands—and combining that talent with experienced leadership under veteran coach Dick Advocaat. The result was an unbeaten qualifying campaign. Cape Verde followed a similarly deliberate path. For more than a decade, the Blue Sharks steadily built a competitive national team, making successive Africa Cup of Nations appearances, reaching two quarter-finals, and developing a clear football identity before finally earning their historic World Cup qualification. Neither success happened overnight. Both were the product of long-term planning, stability and strategic investment. ALSO READ: Rwanda defeat Estonia to clinch FIFA Series Group A title Rwanda has quietly begun assembling many of those same building blocks. Through the Visit Rwanda initiative, the country has forged partnerships with Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid. Those collaborations have gone beyond branding, bringing youth development camps to Rwanda while helping local coaches improve through technical clinics led by European experts. The country has also invested heavily in sports infrastructure and positioned itself as a continental host, staging major events such as the FIFA Series in Kigali this year, where Amavubi defeated Estonia to finish top of their group. The approach has been deliberate: build the infrastructure, strengthen the football ecosystem and invest in development before expecting sustained success on the pitch. There is still considerable work to do. Under English coach Stephen Constantine, Amavubi remain around 128th in the FIFA rankings and have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations only once, in 2004. But Cape Verde once occupied a similar position. The expansion of the FIFA World Cup from 32 to 48 teams has also changed the equation. Africa will now be represented by nine nations, creating opportunities that simply did not exist a decade ago. A country that consistently invests in infrastructure, develops young talent, engages its diaspora and competes regularly at higher levels has a realistic pathway to football's biggest stage. The development of Kigali Sports City, anchored by world-class facilities such as BK Arena, Amahoro Stadium and Zaria Court, represents far more than the construction of modern venues. It reflects Rwanda's ambition to build an integrated sports ecosystem where talent development, business, tourism and elite competition reinforce one another. Cape Verde and Curaçao did not allow their size to define their ambitions. They planned carefully, invested consistently and transformed small populations into major football stories. Rwanda has already begun walking a similar path. The question is no longer whether it is possible. The question is: Why not Rwanda? The author is a football fan and Key Accounts Manager at Mobile Money Rwanda.
