Colin Sheridan: What Pico Lopes and Cape Verde can teach Ireland about international football

There's more to the game than counting Premier League players. 

STANDING TALL: Roberto Lopes of Cabo Verde and Lionel Messi of Argentina at Miami Stadium. Pic: Eston Parker/Sportsfile

There is a metric in domestic football: if you want to know your current potential, count how many players you have in the Premier League. It is a comforting theory. It is also, increasingly, an incomplete one. 

For years, Irish football has become almost consumed by the arithmetic of decline.