Cape Verde vs Angola Prediction: Home team must stay strong

When they face each other on Thursday at the Estadio Nacional de Cabo Verde, Cape Verde and Angola will begin their bids to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the process of qualifying for the tournament. Both teams will compete in the qualifiers as part of Group D, which also includes Eswatini, Mauritius, Libya (the team that won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1982), and Cameroon (the team that has won the title five times).

Last time out, Cape Verde was unable to turn their fortunes around, and as a result, they suffered a disheartening loss to Comoros by the score of 2-1 in a friendly match that took place on October 17. In a game in which Steve Furtado was given his marching orders, Adel Mahamoud and Younes Almindhoiri scored second-half goals to cancel out Kenny Rocha Santos's third-minute opener and hand Les Coelacantes their first win in four matches. This victory gave Les Coelacantes their first win since the beginning of the season. As a consequence of this outcome, Cape Verde have now been defeated in each of their past three matches across all competitions. This includes a loss to Togo by a score of 3-2 in their final qualifying match for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, which took place on September 10. Even though they were defeated by Togo, the Blue Sharks ended up in second place in Group B of the qualifiers, falling short of first place by only one point to Burkina Faso. This allowed them to have back-to-back participation at the semi-annual continental competition. In 2021, Cape Verde competed in the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time since 2016, and they made it all the way to the round of 16, where they were eliminated by Senegal by a score of 2-0. Cape Verde had been absent from the competition for the previous four years. After playing three consecutive games away from home, Bubista's team is now back on their own turf. They are now riding a four-game winning streak at home and have only suffered a single defeat in their previous seven matches, with four victories, two draws, and one loss since October 2021. As they head into Thursday's match, Cape Verde will be seeking to prolong their strong home form and halt their current losing streak as they continue to work toward qualifying for their first-ever World Cup in 2026.

Angola qualified for the 2024 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) with flying colors, securing a spot in the tournament by claiming the runner-up spot in Group E and earning automatic qualification. After a dismal qualifying campaign saw them lose out in 2021, the Central Africans finished third in the standings with nine points after collecting two wins, three draws, and one loss throughout their six matches. This put them two points ahead of the Central African Republic, who finished in fourth place. Since then, Angola has had trouble getting positive results, as evidenced by the fact that they were defeated by Iran in a friendly match by a score of 4-0 on September 12, and then they played to consecutive draws against Mozambique and Congo DR, respectively. The Black Sable Antelopes will now shift their focus to the World Cup qualifiers, where they will attempt to secure only their second appearance in the competition. The men coached by Pedro Goncalves competed in the World Cup in 2006, when they finished in third place in Group D after earning two draws and suffering one defeat across their three group-stage matches. Although Angola will try to get off to a winning start in their qualification journey, the country has had trouble getting good results when playing away from home. Since November 2022, Angola has only earned one victory in their last six matches played away from home.

Following a trying period of three months, both Cape Verde and Angola will go into Thursday's match wanting to pick up a result that would improve their confidence and get their qualifying campaigns off to a good start. The men led by Bubista have the benefit of playing at home, and given that they have not suffered a loss in any of their previous four consecutive competitive home games since January 2022, we anticipate that they will prevail in this matchup.