Cape Verde's Unlikely Journey at the World Cup
Roberto Lopes walked off the pitch on Sunday with his shirt drenched, his voice hoarse and his belief utterly intact. Cape Verde had just gone toe-to-toe with Uruguay at a World Cup and refused to blink.
They trailed. They led. They were pegged back. And in the end, they took a point that keeps an improbable dream very much alive.
A defender who looks like he’s always belonged
The Shamrock Rovers centre-back looked completely at ease on the biggest stage, marshalling a Cape Verde side that once again played with a calm, organised edge. Uruguay, with all their pedigree, could only muster two shots on target. Both of them went in. Both came in a damaging spell that still irritates Lopes.
“For the majority of the first half, we played quite well and had good organisation,” he said afterwards. “And then the last five minutes, we lost that. We switched off and they punished us.”
They knew what was coming: numbers in the box, quality deliveries, pressure on every cross. They still got stung. It could have broken a smaller team. Cape Verde regrouped instead.
“What happened, happened,” Lopes said. “I thought we showed great character in the second half to come together, get an equaliser and see the game out. It was a good draw. But the next game is very important.”
Important is putting it mildly.
The equation is simple. The opportunity is huge.
Cape Verde sit on the brink of the last 32. A draw with Saudi Arabia might be enough to sneak through as one of the best third-placed sides. The margins are that fine.
There’s an even cleaner route. If Spain beat Uruguay, Cape Verde will go through automatically by simply avoiding defeat against Saudi Arabia, securing second place in Group H. Win it, and there’s no need for calculators or permutations.
“We know what happens if we win,” Lopes said. “If we win, we’re in the next round. It doesn’t matter what position you finish in the group. Once you’re there, that’s the main thing. It’s one game at a time.”
The knockout stages are no longer a fantasy. They’re within touching distance of a squad that has treated every minute of this tournament as proof of belonging.
“That was our goal,” the Dublin-born defender said. “We got here on merit. You don’t win a prize to get to the World Cup. You have to compete, you have to qualify and it’s difficult to get here.
“And now you’re mixing it with some of the best teams in the world. Our goal first and foremost was just to attack the first game and show that we belong here. Nothing changed for the second one tonight.
“We wanted to try and get three points. We got a point. It’s another point to where we want to be.
“We’ve got a good opportunity of reaching the next phase, which would be amazing for our group. It was part of our goals, just to show that we deserve to be at this level.”
Unbeaten in their group, hardened by a qualifying campaign built on the same mentality, Cape Verde are not here to make up the numbers. They’re here to stretch the limits of what this team, and this footballing nation, can be.
From LinkedIn message to World Cup nights
If the football story feels unlikely, the origin story borders on surreal. Lopes’ route into this team has been told many times now, but it still sounds like a script that should have been rejected for being too far-fetched.
A LinkedIn message. A reply. A call-up. International football, via a networking platform.
“It’s a crazy story,” he admitted. “I’m sure everyone’s heard it by now. Look, I never thought that was the way, that it was the route to international football.
“But it just goes to show that it can happen. This is the stuff of dreams. When I received the message and I answered it and I got called up, did I think we could make a World Cup? Probably not.
“Did I think we’d be at a World Cup? Probably not. But as I grew into the team and I got to know everybody, I saw the quality of the squad, I knew we were capable of doing great things.”
Those “great things” started at AFCON, where Cape Verde proved they could compete with the best in Africa. The next logical step was the hardest one: the World Cup.
“We believed, we dreamt and we achieved,” Lopes said. “We’re looking to do some more now.”
No time for Messi fantasies
The possibilities, if they advance, are mouth-watering. A third-place finish could throw them into the path of Argentina, with Lionel Messi and company still pushing to wrap up top spot in their own group.
That kind of tie would light up the tournament and rewrite Cape Verde’s footballing history in an instant. Lopes isn’t biting.
“We won’t get too far ahead of who we’ll be playing,” he insisted. “We have to respect Saudi Arabia. They’re a really strong team.
“And we have to try and win the game. And that has to be the goal.”
The story, for now, stays small. One match. One task. One more performance to show they belong on this stage.
Cape Verde have already turned a LinkedIn message into a World Cup journey. The question now is whether they can turn belief into a place in the last 16.
