Cape Verde’s Roberto Lopes was working at a bank when he was recruited on LinkedIn to play soccer—he thought it was spam, now he’s at the World Cup

When Roberto Lopes received a seemingly random Linked In message in 2018, he assumed it was spam and ignored it. At the time, Lopes—nicknamed “Pico”—was working at a Dublin bank while playing part-time for Shamrock Rovers, an Irish soccer club. Born to an Irish mother and a Cape Verdean father, he had unknowingly been flagged by Cape Verde national team coach Rui Aguas, who was searching for eligible players to bolster the squad of the small West African island nation. Nine months later, Aguas followed up—this time in English—asking if Lopes had seen his earlier message. “I copied the [initial] message and put it into Google Translate, and it basically said, ‘We’re looking at getting new players into the Cape Verde squad and would you be interested in declaring for Cape Verde?’” Lopes recalled to BBC Sport. “I was absolutely buzzing with that. I was like, ‘Yep, 100% I’d love to be a part of the squad’.” Just three weeks later, after scrambling to get documents from his father like a birth certificate and passport, Lopes was on a plane to make his international debut against Togo. Now, Cape Verde and Lopes are making their World Cup debut Over the next seven years, Lopes became a fixture in the national team as Cape Verde transformed from a minnow on the international stage into one of the 2026 World Cup‘s surprise stories. Last week, the nation made its first-ever appearance at the tournament and opened with a scoreless draw against Spain—a remarkable result given the matchup featured the world’s No. 3-ranked team against No. 64. For Lopes, the opportunity has been hard to believe. “From when I was a young child, and I imagine every aspiring footballer when they were young, they wanted to play at the highest level possible and, for me, it doesn’t go any further than the World Cup,” Lopes said. “Being able to represent my family playing for the national team and being able to put