Libya’s international airports will be quite the busy hub for football’s elite, be they its fast risers or its traditional giants, over the next 48 hours.
Touching down in Benghazi on Thursday, two heavyweights of the European club game, Italy’s Inter Milan and Spain’s Atletico Madrid. Lifting off from a Tripoli runway a few hours earlier a more disparate set of professionals, employed in less glamorous leagues but quite possibly celebrating the greatest moment of their careers.
That last set of travellers are the national squad of Cape Verde, the archipelago nation who, should they beat Libya in the penultimate fixture of Africa’s group phase of World Cup qualifying, will feel truly they have touched the sky.
An astonishing underdog story is imminent: Cape Verde, with a population of less than 600,000, with a smaller land mass than any country to have reached the biggest tournament in the planet’s most popular sport, are three points from securing their ticket to the 2026 World Cup and have two fixtures, the first in Tripoli on Wednesday, to grasp them.
All of which puts Libya, and the grand ambitions of its football, under a potentially awkward scrutiny. The national team, the so-called Knights of the Mediterranean, have an outside chance still of keeping their World Cup dream alive from third place in a group that will send its top finisher directly to North America next summer and its runners-up into the scramble for a possible play-off route to the expanded 48-team tournament.
But Libya trail leaders Cape Verde by five points, and Cameroon by a single point. To keep the race alive into next week’s final round of matches, Libya, realistically, need to win on Wednesday.
Fail and they risk looking like mere valets to the long procession of VIP guests dropping in on them this week, bystanders to jubilant Cape Verde celebrations and, in Benghazi, to the two glamorous European clubs who will play a lucrative friendly at a very handsome new stadium and, by being there, endorse a message that Libya is ready and able to host major events.
Inter against Atletico, for the one-off Reconstruction Cup, is consequential less for its result than as a statement event that, its hosts hope, spreads the word that Libya is now a welcoming, safe and peaceful place.
Organisers call it “an initiative carrying a message of hope, renewal, and openness, a chance for Libyan youth to experience world-class sports up close, and to build bridges of sporting and cultural cooperation with Europe’s leading clubs".
Briefings from within Barcelona that Barca, the Spanish champions, had been slated to take part in the Reconstruction Cup but withdrew because they felt there were insufficient security guarantees run somewhat counter to that message. At the same time, Atletico quickly felt happy to step in.
While politically divided Libya does project greater stability than for much of the past 15 years, the image of its football suffered 12 months ago when the Nigeria squad, en route to Benghazi for an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, reported being stranded at Bayda airport for more than 12 hours. The Confederation of African Football found Libya had breached competition rules on hosting responsibilities and awarded Nigeria a 3-0 default win.
That ended any hope of Libya reaching the 2025 Afcon. But with the grand opening of the 42,000 Benghazi International stadium in February and the appointment of one of Africa’s leading coaches, the Senegalese Aliou Cisse, as manager a month later, there were tangible signs of what Cisse calls “the vision” of the Libyan Football Federation.
“This country is full of talent and potential,” says Cisse, who guided Senegal to their first Afcon title in 2022, and whose intention is to shape Libya’s potential long-term. “I am a man for projects, for building through a generation.”
A spirited 1-0 win in Angola last month maintained the chase for a World Cup ticket. But whatever the result against Cape Verde, Libya will still look on with a little envy at their opponents, whose rise as a national team over the past 12 years, from their first Afcon, to the brink of a World Cup, is a story of efficient organisation.
Not least in their persuading so many Cape Verdean players from the country’s extensive diaspora to commit to the cause. A succession of Libya head coaches have struggled to persuade some of the prominent Libyan footballers at European clubs to answer international call-ups.
There are bound to be some envious glances, too, at the pair of European super clubs who roll into Benghazi. Inter, Uefa Champions League finalists twice in the past three seasons, may be without Lautaro Martinez, on duty with Argentina, their five players called up by Italy and another six serving other national sides, but the line-up will still be competitive and peppered with household names from Yann Sommer to Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Atletico may have four players away with Argentina, the world champions, another four with Spain, the European champions, but head coach Diego Simeone can still call on the likes of Antoine Griezmann.
There may also be wistful glances from Cisse and his players at Libya’s nearest neighbours. Morocco breezed to World Cup qualification, Tunisia have likewise already secured their place and Egypt and Algeria should confirm theirs this week.
