The joy and wonder of Cabo Verde's unlikely World Cup journey - ESPN

The first hint of World Cup wonder concerning one tiny nation arose in the mid-afternoon of June 2 at Logan Airport in Boston in a vast room freighted with human meaning: international arrivals. That's where a hundred-strong throng carried flags and held up scarves and sang songs, and somebody brought along a whistle. Any everyday people standing nearby, holding flowers and balloons for incoming travelers, might have wondered: What is this Cabo Verde, and why is it so euphoric?

Cabo Verde, the third-smallest tournament qualifier ever by population, and the second smallest by land area, had touched down to begin a debut World Cup campaign. The dreamy truth really was the dreamy truth for a country with a past both heartbreaking and uplifting. The players would file out from customs for a cascade of love from a portion of the largest Cabo Verdean diaspora in the United States — around 70,000 in Massachusetts, 21,000 in Rhode Island — some of whom had driven irksome distances through the Boston gauntlet.

But, then: An airport official materialized. The players would not emerge but would board a bus directly from inside Logan.

Anticipation morphed to disappointment.

The revelers frowned briefly, one by one, as word spread.

Then they sang.

Look where we're walking

Look where we're standing

We're all over the world

Look where we've gone

We're spread all throughout the world

Those lyrics, from a recent-years anthem by Soraia Ramos (translated here from Cabo Verdean Creole), pertain directly to Cabo Verdeans, whose legacy of alighting in places around the world has annexed a stirring example with this World Cup.

«Just the fact that our name's going around the world, that people will say our name,» Ed Lopes, 30, marveled in