Delight for Lopes as Cape Verde qualify for World Cup

Shamrock Rovers defender Pico Lopes helped Cape Verde to qualify for their first World Cup on Monday after a 3-0 win over Eswatini ensured they finished top of their African zone group.

The West African archipelago, with a population of around 600,000, are the second smallest country in tournament history to qualify after Iceland, who competed in Russia in 2018.

The 2026 World Cup will be hosted in Canada, USA and Mexico.

It's the completion of a remarkable journey for Dublin-born Lopes, whose clever dummy led to Dailon Rocha Livramento's opening goal in the 48th minute. Willy Semedo made it 2-0 six minutes later, with Stopira putting the cherry on top in stoppage time.

Lopes qualifies to play for Cape Verde through his father, and was first called up back in 2019 after receiving a message on LinkedIn from the team’s coach at the time, Rui Aguas.

Lopes had ignored a previous message from Aguas sent a year earlier because it was in Portuguese and he did not understand it.

However, once he pulled on the Cape Verde shirt, he never looked back, establishing himself as a key figure in the dressing room.

Lopes still has an FAI Cup final to look forward to with Shamrock Rovers, who face Cork City in this year's decider, while the Hoops need just one point from their last four games to win the league.

Cape Verde started the day two points ahead of Cameroon, whose eight previous World Cup finals appearances are the most by an African country. Cape Verde finished Group D on 23 points, four ahead of Cameroon, who were held at home to a goalless draw by Angola.

Cape Verde rarely played international football some 25 years ago, but now head to next year's finals in North America as one of the nine African representatives.

They join Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and Ghana, who have qualified already.

Cameroon will likely advance to the play-offs for the four best runners-up across the nine African qualifying groups, but were jeered off in Yaounde after failure to beat Angola, whose 39-year-old goalkeeper Hugo Marques made several telling stops.

Additional reporting: Reuters

Watch Republic of Ireland v Armenia in World Cup qualifying on Tuesday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to live radio commentary on an extended Game On programme on RTÉ 2fm.

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