Published September 28, 2026 · By the Goalorithm model desk
Full time: Cape Verde Islands 1–2 Rwanda. Read the match analysis →
Preview
Cape Verde Islands host Rwanda in the Africa Cup of Nations - Qualification on Tuesday, September 29 at 12:00 p.m. ET, with the model pointing firmly toward a home win. Its scoring projections suggest a match in which Cape Verde Islands are expected to create the clearer route to goal, while the outlook for Rwanda is more restrained.
That makes the central question whether Cape Verde Islands can turn the model’s expected-goals edge into the kind of low-scoring result its score projections favour. The model gives its likeliest result as a Cape Verde Islands win. These probabilities are estimates; the pattern across the model’s figures is consistent, with the home side prominent and a modest total of goals more likely than a high-scoring game.
What the model expects
The model gives Cape Verde Islands 62.3%, a draw 25% and Rwanda 12.7%. Its outcomes, from likeliest down, are a Cape Verde Islands win (62.3%), then a draw (25%), then a Rwanda win (12.7%). That is a clear tilt toward Cape Verde Islands, rather than a projection of an evenly balanced contest. The model’s lean is Cape Verde Islands to win.
The goals outlook is over 2.5 goals at 34.5% and under 2.5 goals at 65.5%. Both teams score 26.7%, while the chance that at least one side fails to score is 73.3%. Taken together, those figures point toward a match where a blank for one side is a more prominent possibility than both teams finding the net. The model’s expected goals are 1.7 for Cape Verde Islands and 0.4 for Rwanda, a split that underlines why its overall outlook favours the hosts and anticipates limited attacking output from Rwanda.