Magical Lopes Stateside odyssey meets Messi
Picture shows Aer Lingus cabin crew members Louise Furlong (left) and Emma Regazzoli (right) with at centre from left Jacques; Judie and Carlos Lopes at Dublin Airport ahead of their flight to Florida. Judie and Carlos Lopes will fly with Aer Lingus to Orlando, and they’ll be cheering for their son Pico on Friday night. Aer Lingus is proud to support the Lopes family’s travel and wishes Pico the very best of luck. For more information on flights and to book the best fares, see www.aerlingus.com Pic:Naoise Culhane-no fee
James Corden’s return to the Stateside late night circuit has been a successful one. By surrounding himself with star power and focusing on the football just enough, has been a bearable feature of Fox’s World Cup slate over here.
It’s a midnight special which wraps up the day’s action, tees up tomorrow and doesn’t drift too far into infantile inanities. On Tuesday night in the minutes after Mexico’s latest Azteca triumph, studio anchor Rebecca Lowe cued up Corden’s show by telling Americans he’d be bringing out the big guns: Colin Farrell, the tournament’s certified social media star Vozinha, and Pico Lopes.
More used to playing in front of his 40-year-old goalkeeper, who is now approaching 18 millions Instagram followers, Lopes was more than content to drop in behind. Millions of Americans would hear Shamrock Rovers get a couple of shoutouts when Farrell spoke of his late father Eamon’s playing days in green and white and later when Lopes joined the show.
The 34-year-old skipper may very soon be back in hoops himself. But Lopes’s Stateside odyssey, as pure and perfectly magical an Irish sporting story as we’ve had in some time, has at least one more chapter to be written. At Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Friday night, Cape Verde will face Argentina in the penultimate Last 32 match. So it’s Messi vs Pico. What a joy.
"I don't actually believe I'm involved in it at all, it's that amazing.”
They are the words of a Lopes but not the man who has helped the Blue Sharks keep two clean sheets and stay undefeated through the group stages over the past two and a half weeks. Instead they belonged to Pico’s Dublin mam Judy, before she boarded a flight from Dublin to Florida to see it and believe it at least one more time.
“Just to think he's probably going up against one of the best players in the world,” she said of her son. “[And] that he, Messi, will be studying Pico's form and analysing his strategy, seeing how he's going to beat the rock at the back!”
The rock at the Hard place. Writes itself. The words of a proud mother can often fall into overstatement. Irish mams are the Messis at that. Yet on the blindingly giant screen in Dallas the other day, as pre-game festivities ramped up for Norway and Cote d’Ivoire, FIFA’s own tournament Power Rankings were blared out. The defensive top 10 featured giants and new luminaries, Rodri, Casemiro, Elliot Anderson, Aymeric Laporte. Smack in the middle of them in sixth place through the group stages was Lopes.
Off the field too he’s been an irresistible story. The origins, which were of course well told back home since he made his Cape Verde debut in 2019, have got a fresh airing to a global audience not once, twice or thrice. But now a fourth occasion and the biggest yet. Each time, the yarn reaches new ears that are instantly enchanted.
That it was Aer Lingus and not LinkedIn who stepped up to fly Judy, husband Carlos and brother Jacques back across the Atlantic for the knock-out stage seems miserly. LinkedIn shares have surely spiked on the back of all the free advertising that’s come their way. Pico's wife Leah and son Diego, along with their travelling party, took a step up in class. The reported that ex-pat property agent Sean O’Cuinneagain, based in Florida, helped the Lopes crew swap the camper van for a private jet, laid on by Fly USA. Arriving in Miami the Miami way.
Cape Verde’s remarkable progress has already made plenty of history. With less than 600,000 people, they are the smallest country to ever make it to the knockout stages of a World Cup.
“We have shown that nothing is impossible,” manager Bubista said after Saturday's stalemate with Saudi Arabia which clinched progress. “We have represented our country but we also represent Africa and small countries around the world.”
And Lopes has represented a smaller league with peerless distinction. On Friday evening on the other side of the Atlantic, Shamrock Rovers will visit the Showgrounds mere hours before their skipper faces off with the world champions. As a proud Sligoman, we are supposed to not have even a Bit O’regard for anyone from the Shams side of things. Lopes is of course different. His exploits here and the limelight they have brought have done Irish domestic football a massive service.
So too has this journey provided a perfectly timed and forceful riposte to the morons who try to harness immigration and identity as weapons to punch down on vulnerable communities back home. Of course Pico Lopes can wrap himself in a Tricolour for a brief part of a lap of honour around a World Cup stadium. He has earned the right to celebrate in every way he wishes.
When he re-emerges into another towering arena on Friday evening he will be representing the flag of Cape Verde, singing their national anthem and surely having a glance up at those who have flown from near and far, in first class and millionaire class. His priceless journey isn’t done yet. Messi vs the Blue Sharks’ rock at the back. Perfect.
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