Two years ago, Cape Verde faced co-hosts Sweden at the 2023 IHF Men’s World Championship in front of 11,750 home fans at the Scandinavium in Gothenburg and later today (Wednesday 22 January) they will once again face the co-hosts of an IHF Men’s World Championship – Croatia, one of the three countries delivering the event in 2025.

The preliminary clash against the Scandinavians two years ago saw the African side lose 34:27 (19:8), but an incredible turnaround in the second period from Cape Verde signalled their intent going forward as they took a 19:15 second half ‘win’, something which they will be hoping to repeat in Zagreb.

“We took this amazing opportunity to play against Sweden at home and now we play against Croatia at home. We watched Croatia before here (Arena Zagreb) and it was amazing so we will try to enjoy it as much as possible, but with responsibility,” says Cape Verde’s Paulo Moreno to ihf.info about the upcoming opportunity.

“It's a big pleasure being here. Opportunities to play against the great teams, the best players and the best coaches help us to grow to be better. I say all the time ‘I love this game’, we are going for our best ranking ever and we need to fight for more.”

Moreno scored six goals against Sweden two years ago as he led his side to a dominant second half performance, including outscoring the Swedes 12:5 in the last quarter, but with the game against a Croatian team now fighting for their lives to progress from the main round, the pressure will be on.

“Croatia are amazing and we are not on the level of them,” explained the 32-year-old line player.  “Everybody knows that Croatia have amazing players, playing Champions League, at the best clubs in the world and who are led by an amazing coach here.

“We know that it is not our level, but the first thing is that we need to enjoy the game. We need to play with our all, give our best, our maximum and try to take this experience to grow. This is the goal. That's how you get better. If you don't play against the best teams, you will not improve.”

While the 15,200-capacity Arena Zagreb will be predominantly full of home fans, Cape Verde can always rely on some of their own supporters making themselves heard with Moreno and his teammates hoping to give them something in return on the court.

“Even if they are only a few, they support us all the time and this is the most important thing,” he says. “I know that there are a few [here], but we have a lot of people in our country and also around the world that all the time are with us. We want to make the people proud of us, and be proud of us all the time.”

Moreno is one of the players who has played in all three editions of the IHF Men’s World Championship that Cape Verde have appeared in, including the covid-affected one-game appearance at Egypt 2021 where they played Hungary.

And with that experience, he knows the significance of what his team are achieving in 2025, with additional hopes of eclipsing their 23rd place rank gained two years ago.

“We are growing,” explains the Chartres Metropole club player. “This team are five years together, five years in and, of course, we know we are working good. But, in my opinion, all the time, we can do better. We need to try to learn some things. For example, we started really bad against Iceland in our first game, but we need to be fighting all the time. We know we are not at the same level as these amazing teams, but we need to fight all the time. We need to try maximum and give our best to grow.

“We want a little bit more, as we know we will play against great teams like Croatia and Egypt,” he added. “When we play Argentina, we have a good opportunity to fight for our ranking to be even better than in Sweden – it’s what we want. We will have to fight against Argentina to be better, but I really expect to do good against Croatia and Egypt.

“We are a good generation and even though we don’t have too much money to put in the sport we are trying to improve and help the kids that are coming to be our future.”

With thanks to Katarina Bižanović.