Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes, a defender for Irish football team Shamrock Rovers, this week helped Cabo Verde make history by qualifying for next year’s World Cup.
The island nation of around 525,000 people became the second-smallest nation to reach the tournament after beating Eswatini 3-0 on Monday.
A former Blue Sharks coach first reached out to Lopes — born in Dublin to a Cabo Verdean father and Irish mother — via LinkedIn in 2019. It has been a journey onto football’s biggest world stage but also a deeply personal one for the 33-year-old center-back, who has spent the last six years learning Portuguese and understanding more about his heritage.
More than half of Cabo Verde’s squad are drawn from the diaspora, particularly the Netherlands and Portugal. “We’re all over the world. It’s great what we can achieve when we’re together,” Lopes told the BBC.