Pico Lopes admits he’s in pinch-me territory as World Cup opener against Spain closes in

At the Soccer Writers Ireland annual awards function before Christmas, Pico Lopes nipped out to the residents’ bar at Clontarf Castle to await his fate. Nestled in the corner and fixated on a large television screen in front of him, he watched the World Cup draw unfold live from Washington, armed with just one item on his festive wish list.

“We wanted a big name,” explained the Shamrock Rovers captain. He is currently preparing for the tournament, which starts across Mexico, Canada and the United States on June 11th. Lopes declared for Cape Verde in 2019, the African island nation where his father Carlos is from.

“You’re going to the biggest stage, you want to be mixing it with the best players,” he said. “When the draw was made, I saw Brazil, Argentina, France and England all getting paired off and into their groups. You’re like, ‘just give us someone’. And then you get Spain. Amazing.”

Cape Verde will also face Uruguay and Saudi Arabia in Group H. Having already played at two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments, Dubliner Lopes believes this leap of faith onto the biggest stage of all is something to savour and embrace.

He continued: “You work so hard to get to this stage, to let it go would be terrible. We’ve got a difficult group, but they’re all difficult games at the World Cup. We must believe we can get out of the group, be competitive and then you never know.”

As a 10-year-old, Lopes remembers the TV being wheeled into the classroom so that he and his schoolmates could watch bits and bobs of World Cup 2002. Little flashes of France 98 linger in the back of his mind, but Japan and South Korea 24 years ago was the first World Cup that really landed with him.

It helped that Ireland were there, of course. Young or old, there was no escaping the seismic Saipan fallout. But the Brazilian team that won a record fifth crown – with his favourite players Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Rivaldo to the fore – is what stands out most.

The World Cup is a global stage for a select few. It’s no wonder the centre back has to pause and exhale from time to time as the reality hits home that he won’t be plonked on the sofa with remote in hand next month. He will be playing at the finals.

“You do have moments where you pinch yourself,” said the 33-year-old Crumlin man. He has amassed 44 caps for Cape Verde since belatedly answering a life-changing LinkedIn message that he initially ignored in 2018, as he thought it was spam.

“This is the stuff of dreams, honestly. I’ve said to myself that when I’m over there, I’ll enjoy every moment of it. Most young footballers growing up, they play World Cup on the street so it’s a dream to actually play at one.”

Lopes often reflects on that initial contact from Cape Verde’s former manager Rui Aguas. The LinkedIn message was in Portuguese and he brushed it off, unaware it was offering him a route into international football. But Aguas was persistent and messaged him again months later, in English. This time nothing was lost in translation.

Lopes said: “It’s probably the weirdest way to get called up. I’m down as one of the most difficult players to be declared for Cape Verde, because I was so hard to get in touch with.

“Even the paperwork going through, it was quite difficult. After my first [friendly] game in Marseille, it was 12 months until the official paperwork went through, so it was a bit of a rigmarole as I had played three minutes for Ireland’s Under-19s and that caused a bit of red tape.”

Seven years on, Lopes can hold his own conversing in Creole, the Portuguese-based language of Cape Verde. Self-taught, he even changed all the settings on his phone and Netflix account to Portuguese. Every little helps.

“Duolingo, Babbel, every language app under the sun,” he said. “I got married in Lisbon and we went on our honeymoon in Cape Verde and had a few interactions with the locals. I was able to hold my own. My wife Leah was very impressed. I didn’t let on that it was broken words because it sounded like I knew what I was talking about."

On Sunday, Lopes is heading back to Lisbon with Cape Verde for a World Cup training camp that includes a friendly against Serbia the following weekend. From there, it’s on to Boston for a final warm-up game against opposition still to be confirmed.

The team will then be based in Tampa from June 8th, ahead of their World Cup group games against Spain in Atlanta on June 15th, Uruguay in Miami on June 21st and Saudi Arabia in Houston on June 27th.

It’s quite the distance to cover by air, never mind in a camper van, but that’s how Leah, their seven-month old son Diego and an array of family members are planning to take in the games.

“My mam and dad are going over, I’ve two brothers looking to go, my wife and her family and a couple of friends. Probably around 15 to 20 of really close people to me and I’m really grateful to them,” said Lopes.

[ Roberto Lopes’ ‘surreal’ journey from bank to Cape VerdeOpens in new window ]

“There’s an RV being rented in Atlanta and they will go on a little road trip around America to get to the games. To be able to say you did that for Diego and my family, it’s amazing. It’s a lot of driving but it’s spread out and there will be two or three drivers.”

The World Cup may be uncharted territory for a player whose entire career has been spent in the League of Ireland, first with Bohemians and then Shamrock Rovers, where the exposure to high-level European games has stood to him over a prolonged spell. But he is well versed in tournament football from his experiences in the Africa Cup of Nations. He will draw on that as the islanders look to cause upsets.

“They’re a really proud football nation,” Lopes said. “At the last two games in Cape Verde, the government gave everyone a half-day to go and there were 15,000 people at each game. The streets were lined and you couldn’t get out of the stadium for about two hours.

“There’s that underdog story. You’re out in the middle of the sea on your own. A small nation with big hearts. You want to prove yourself against the bigger nations in the world. They have only been part of Fifa for [40 years] and to qualify for a World Cup, there’s nothing bigger.”

– Pico Lopes was speaking at the Nike x Intersport Elverys Gear Up experience, celebrating his journey from the League of Ireland to the World Cup.

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