Cape Verde has sensationally qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. A Super League player can now hope to make the squad.
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- Last week, Cape Verde sensationally qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico.
- The extended squad also includes Winterthur's Stéphane Cueni, who talks to blue Sport about his chances of making the squad.
- He is not thinking about the World Cup at the moment, his focus is on FCW, which is playing against relegation from the Super League.
There is no reason for FC Winterthur to be happy in the current Super League season. Two draws and six defeats in eight games is the Zurich club's sobering record. With the two points they have gained, they are six points behind Servette in last place in the table.
Only one player from Winterthur is feeling happy at the moment: Stéphane Cueni. The Lausanne-born 24-year-old has been part of the extended squad for Cape Verde since the beginning of the summer - the nation that sensationally qualified for the World Cup for the first time last week.
"This is a great success and a great source of pride," says the 24-year-old, who played his only international match to date against Malaysia at the end of May, in an interview with blue Sport.
"I'm not thinking about it yet"
The midfielder watched the decisive qualifying match against Eswatini on television. He shared the excitement with his family and Gelson Fernandes, Edimilson Fernandes, Alvyn Sanches and Joël Monteiro, who all have Cape Verdean roots.
Is he already dreaming of a World Cup call-up? "I'm not thinking about the World Cup yet. My focus is on Winterthur, we want to stay in the Super League," says Cueni, who played for Switzerland up to U20 level.
For him, the call-up is not a matter of course, although his Winterthur team-mates are delighted that he could take part in the World Cup. "They have no information about the Cape Verde national team and don't know the players," says the 24-year-old with a grin.
In order to be a permanent member of the squad, Cueni must first prove himself with good performances in the FC Winterthur kit - perhaps as early as Saturday against FC Basel (live exclusively on blue Sport at 18:00). Even if he thinks that not many people from Cape Verde will be watching the game: "They've been celebrating a lot in the last few days. They still need to rest up a bit."
