People come of age when they move from adolescence to adulthood, but for sports teams that journey is a little more complicated. Theirs is not so much about growing up as it about getting better, which is why Cape Verde's passage from potential to real promise was completed on Tuesday night.
They beat hosts Portugal 2-0 to move from colonised to conquerors. Although the fine print will reveal that the Islanders overcame a second-string Portuguese side with a debutant goalkeeper, and who were reduced to 10 men for a third of the game, history may remember it as one of the most important turning points for the tiny island nation's football, which has had a few key markers already.
Their qualification for the 2013 African Nations' Cup was a culmination of a more than a decade's worth of concentrated development which came after their first attempt to play at a World Cup in 2000. Cape Verde were trying to get to Japan and South Korea in 2002. They got as far as facing Algeria in the first round of qualification and lost.
Odair Fortes, who scored the opening goal against Portugal, was 13 years old back then and remembered football as a small and not very well-supported national game. "When we were growing up, everyone in Cape Verde used to support Senegal as they were the closest 'big team'," Fortes recalled.
Everyone in Cape Verde did not have much of a choice. All of their own players who were good enough to make it big did it for other countries, particularly Portugal where Nani made his name. The diaspora robbed Cape Verde of its best footballing resources but it also showed them where they could find talent.
Like Algeria, who have sourced players from France, Cape Verde searched as far as they could, to the point where they are no able to compile a squad without a single locally-based player. Cape Verdean FIFA Licensed Players' Agent, Tony Araujo, who is based in New York City, explained why that was a smart move "This provides us with a competitive advantage against many other African nations," he said.
While doing that, Cape Verde has also taken steps to start improving at home in the hope of developing players themselves. Their FA was one of the first to benefit from FIFA's the artificial turf support program in 2008 and since then, 15 pitches have been built across the country. They have also given FIFA a reason to continue to assist them by putting funds to good use. In the last seven years, Cape Verde have spent US $250,000 of the money it received from FIFA's Financial Assistance Program for senior domestic competitions, and its transparency has made it attractive to the global sporting body and sponsors alike.
In June 2014 the Seychelles News Agency credited the success of the football team to the country's governance, calling the two "directly connected." Cape Verde is a stable multi-party democracy, with low levels of corruption and is therefore seen as a safe place for investment.
For football development, its citizens enjoy "universal access to primary and secondary schools," which Araujo hopes can be used to accelerate football development as well. Araujo also believes that Cape Verde's talent should not be limited to its main two sources of development: The EPIF Foundation, which Real Madrid is considering partnering with, and the Batuque Futebol Club, an amateur club. "Cape Verde cannot keep relying solely and exclusively on these two key sporting institutions to develop the future footballers for the country's national team," Araujo said, but with an ample number of institutions, he hopes they can cast the net wider.
FA President Mario Semedo promised every effort is being made to spread the game despite the lack of resources. "Our kids start football at an early age and sometimes in difficult and adverse conditions," Semedo said to FIFA, before revealing how it has only made them more resilient. "Under these conditions, qualities like hard work and dedication are essential, and the recipe for our success in football is made up of those ingredients."
Against Portugal on Tuesday, that was certainly the case.