I cannot believe Cape Verde actually convinced this guy to play for them via LinkedIn😭. Monster of a defender.
His mother is Irish, his father is from Cape Verde. He was born and raised in Ireland, and currently the captain of Shamrock Rovers.
He represented Ireland at youth level before switching to Cape Verde.
In 2018, Cape Verde were looking for professional footballers with Cape Verdian heritage and the coach came across Pico Lopes.
He messaged him on LinkedIn to play for them, Lopes was working part time as a Mortgage advisor in a bank then and still playing professional football.
He didn’t respond because the message was in Portuguese and he didn’t understand, he thought it was a spam.
A year later (2019), the coach messaged him again, this time he did it in English. Lopes agreed to play for Cape Verde and the rest is history.
A very good addition to the squad, a pure leader. Ladies and Gentlemen, Pico Lopes.