By following the local game, I had learned to lower my expectations and I expected the Sal island native to be an overrated trickster. The first time I saw him playing was on the last national league and by half-time I knew I was wrong. Santa Maria was winning 2-0 at Académica da Praia and Rody was involved in every meaningful attack. He was replaced at the beginning of the second half and the match ended 2-2.

He reminded me of Ronaldinho, on his first brilliant years in Barcelona. Rody had impeccable technique, superb acceleration and an uncanny skill to beat his marker. A few months later, Cape Verde U-21 played against the favourites and hosts, Portugal, on the opening first match of the Lusophony Games. Rody came from the bench and he had the last 30 minutes to shine.

And shine he did, creating two clear opportunities to score and then, out of nothing, winning the penalty that settled the 1-0 win. Cape Verde won the tournament, and afterwards, nobody was surprised when Rody was snapped up by Portuguese giants FC Porto. It reminded me of another rags-to-starlet story, a long time ago.

In 1994, when I just a kid, they were “The Next Big Thing”: three Cape-Verdeans scoring dozens of goals for the FC Porto U-19 team. There was even a rumour about how they spoke Creole among themselves, to further confuse the opponents. Zeferino was the speedy forward, Tinaia the strong midfielder and Rui César the playmaker.

When the summer came around, they were off to Real Madrid B, playing every week alongside Guti, Cambiasso and Etoo. Was it the start of a glittering career? In the space of three years, all three of them were released. Zeferino is now playing in Malta and Tinaia was last seen on the Spanish fourth division.

The last one, Rui César, returned to FC Porto’s Dragon Stadium just last month. The Portuguese champions were playing a cup match against third division Sertanense. The Cape-Verdean is now 31 years old and, besides two years playing for Marítimo, never left the lower leagues.

Rui César was unexpectedly honest to the Portuguese media: “Of course I’m not happy with my career”. But “I think anybody would do the same as I did. Nobody turns down an invitation from Real Madrid”. At the time Porto wasn’t know for giving youngsters a chance on the first team. Yet “of course now I always have that doubt, whether or not it would have been better to remain at FC Porto”.

Of course some players will always choose to play for another national team with a bigger reputation. Besides, you can always rely on the schedule of the African qualifications to force most of them to choose between their country and a successful club career. But there are a couple of steps you can take to make things even easier.

1. Make a big mess out of a trip to a decisive away game

Unless they live in Portugal, getting to Cape Verde is already a drawn-out process for most people. The flights from Europe are few, the local company, TACV, is (in)famous for its delays, and the long trip usually includes a stop-over in Canary Islands.

If that’s not enough, you can always turn a decisive away game into a logistical nightmare. On October 2008, the players were gathered in Portugal before a game in Tanzania. Cape Verde needed to win by two goals in order to squeeze into the final stage of the qualification for the 2012 World Cup.

The plan was simples: a short hop to London and then a direct flight to Dodoma, with two days to focus for the match. But there was a problem on the trip from Lisbon to the UK and the squad missed the plane to Tanzania. After a night in a hotel, they found a far-from-ideal solution.

A first group flew to Kenya and the other to Qatar. When the squad was finally reunited in Tanzania, there were just three hours left before the game. Cape Verde lost 1-3.

And they got their first “drop-out”. Mickael Tavares, a midfielder with Senegalese and Cape Verdean nationality, had made some huge strides since signing for Slavia Prague and was called up for the first time. He flew to London to catch up with the team. And he waited for hours before going back home. Tavares refused the next call-up and, last March, made his debut for Senegal.

2. Forget to pay your manager during almost a year

At the end of 2006, the Cape-Verdian Football Federation was tricked by a Brazilian sports agent into hiring Ricardo Rocha as the national manager. Everyone thought he was the famous international central defender, World Cup champion in 1994. But it was somebody else, who happened to have the same name. Four games later, Ricardo Rocha was back to Brazil.

One of his deputies, the young Portuguese João de Deus, took over. Results picked up, but, even more important than that, there was finally a plan for the grass-roots development of football in Cape Verde. The under-21 and under-18 national teams were created.

And this summer Cape Verde’s young guns defeated Portugal to win the football tournament at the Lusophony Games. And a future star was born. Rody was called up by João de Deus when he was only 16. Less then two years later, he was snapped up by FC Porto.

How do you reward these accomplishments? João de Deus’wages are paid by a sponsor, one of Cape Verde richest entrepreneurs. With the economic crisis, he stopped forking out the money in January. For ten months, the Portuguese coach kept working, without a word to the media about what was happening. The news only popped up last month, when he finally decided to cut his losses, now up to more than 90.000 euros, and went back to Portugal.