HE’S the Irishman recruited to play international football because someone spotted his LinkedIn profile.
And who can clinch a spot at the World Cup tomorrow afternoon? No, it’s not a joke. It’s serious.
Roberto Lopes is on the verge of qualifying for the World Cup with Cape Verde
Lopes, 33, has played his entire football career in Ireland
And for Roberto Carlos “Pico” Lopes, the impossible dream is on the verge of becoming a reality at the age of 33.
Pico, who was born in , has spent his 14-year career in the foothills of the League of , first with Bohemians and then, since 2017, .
A solitary Ireland youth cap in 2011 looked like being the limit of his international career.
Until his profile, in which he cited his Emerald Isle mum and Cape Verde-born father, was spotted by the then-coach of the west African side.
The centre-half recalled: “I set up a LinkedIn profile when I was in college but never really looked at it.
“Out of nowhere I got a message from the then-coach Rui Aguas, but he wrote to me in Portuguese. I thought it was spam and took no notice.
“Then about nine months later, he messaged me back, saying, ‘Hi Roberto, have you had a chance to consider what I said to you?’
“I copied the message into Translate. And it basically said that, we’re looking at getting new players into the Cape Verde squad and would you be interested in declaring for Cape Verde?
“I was absolutely buzzing with that! I was like, yep, 100% I’d love to be a part of the squad.”
Six years and 38 caps later, Pico and his team-mates are one win away from becoming the second smallest nation – behind in 2018 – to qualify for a World Cup.
Despite their country’s name indicating they might play in green, the “Blue Sharks” have been the apex predators of African qualifying Group D and able to put the fatal bite on Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions when they travel to Tripoli to face Libya this afternoon.
With two matches left – they face bottom of the pile Eswatini at home in a fall-back final match on Monday – they are four points ahead of after a crucial 1-0 victory last month that saw exultant fans invading the pitch in sheer joy at the final whistle.
The wind-swept former Portuguese colony island off the west coast of Africa, which has a population of just 600,000, only joined in 1986, and first entered World Cup qualifying for the 2002 tournament.
But coach Bubista, 55, whose own modest playing career was highlighted by two games for Spanish second-division side Badajoz 30 years ago, has taken advantage of the “Cape Verdean diaspora” with a recruitment strategy which swept up Pico and others.
Six of his squad have Dutch roots, while two players – Swansea’s Portuguese-born centre-back Ricardo Santos and Blackburn midfielder Sidnei Tavares, a former Portuguese youth international, are hopeful of being selected for next summer.
US-based agent and player recruitment specialist Tony Araujo, who has worked with the team, explained: “The association devised new strategies around identifying and recruiting talent throughout the large Cape Verdean communities.
“They qualified for their first African Cup of Nations finals in 2013 and with new waves of recent success, a lot more European-based talents are inclined to choose Cape Verde.”
In other games today, Mo Salah’s will qualify with a win in Djibouti and , including and , can also book their passage with a win over Central African Republic in if closest rivals Madagascar do not beat Comoros.
