The long and winding road to the World Cup finals with his father’s homeland finally arrives in Atlanta on Monday for League of Ireland legend Pico Lopes as Cape Verde take on one of the tournament favourites in Spain.
As Pico’s wife Leah and young son Diego embark on a World Cup RV road-trip so the Shamrock Rovers captain will be preparing to face a Spanish side that may or may not include injury doubt Lamine Yamal.
Talking to members of the Irish media from the Cape Verde training camp, Lopes outlined he has taken Portuguese lessons, studied the local Creole dialect and immersed himself in the buzz of a first World Cup after a chance connection with the footballing side of the Atlantic islands that his dad Carlos left as a teenager for Ireland.
“We’re Cape Verdens and we’re Creole people,” Lopes told John Fallon of the Irish Examiner ahead of the move from their training base in Tampa to the match venue in Atlanta.
“Creole is a constant learning and school day for me. Not a written language, a spoken language. It shows us how committed you are to the Cape Verde side; not just about football but the environment that you create. It’s about representing Cape Verde on that world stage.”
Lopes is under no illusions about the task ahead as Cape Verde get ready to play against a star studded Spanish team in what will be a fascinating World Cup debut for the Crumlin native and his team-mates.
“I am a dreamer,” Lopes added. “Watching World Cups as a kid, I always wondered if that would ever happen to me.
“I was realistic too. From working in the bank, and being part-time with Bohemians, I wasn’t at the international football level. This has coincided with my drive for better.
“Let’s just call a spade a spade, Spain are one of the best teams in the world - which you’ve to respect - but you still must believe you can win.
“We’ve said from the get-go that we want to be competitive at this tournament. We can’t just sort of pick and choose our games here because the tournament will pass you by. It’s great to be here and special when you think back on how it materialised.”
Fans from Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers united at Friday night’s Dublin derby to condemn the FAI’s decision to move their Nations League clash with Israel to a neutral venue and their managers have followed suit.
Speaking after the 2-1 win for Shels at Tolka Park, both Reds boss Joey O’Brien and his Rovers counterpart Stephen Bradley criticised the latest move by the FAI in a row that has simmered on since February.
Speaking to Mark McCadden of the Irish Mirror, O’Brien said: “I think the fact that we’re moving it outside the country, if the game was going to take place, definitely should have taken place here.
“I don’t think the game should be going ahead in any way. But if it was, it would have been a great opportunity for the world, basically, to see the support that I think the whole of the country really has for what the Palestinian people are going through.
“I don’t think you should play them, definitely shouldn’t play them. But if you had to play them, I think it should have been here.”
Rovers boss Stephen Bradley added: “My view has been clear from months ago and that hasn’t changed. I think we’re all quite clear in this country, anyone involved in football is quite clear that the game shouldn’t go ahead. I’ve seen nothing to make me change my mind.”
World Cup pundit James McClean has indicated that all is now well with his return to hometown club Derry City and his move back to the League of Ireland he left for Sunderland in 2011.
McClean made his RTE tournament debut on Saturday and his response to an enquiry from host Tony O’Donoghue about his fitness prompted much online speculation.
McClean said: “My fitness generally is fine, obviously, it’s not ideal. But it’s in a lot better place than it was a couple of months ago. A couple of months ago, to be honest, I didn’t really know if I’d be back on a football pitch.
“So the fact that I’ve got a few games in since then is obviously optimistic.”
Asked if he was enjoying life back in Derry however, McClean added: “Probably not so much myself, if I’m being honest. You know, you have a lot of conversations on the phone and then you come home and you quickly realise what you hear on the phone, it’s not what you see in reality.
“So yeah, there’s a lot of factors that’s contributed to that and we’ll leave them for another day.”
Ireland legend John Aldridge has claimed that England have a squad capable of winning the World Cup despite the constant online and media criticism the players face when playing for their country.
Writing in his column on the Sunday Independent website, Aldridge gives his views on how public opinion is a constant drawback whenever England look to end what is now 60 years of hurt since that World Cup win in 1966.
“England have a squad capable of winning this World Cup, but there is one big reason why they have failed to get over the winning line in 60 long years,” writes Aldridge.
“Thomas Tuchel is the latest manager trying to end England’s status as nearly men on the international stage, and he is about to face the same problem all his predecessors have come up against - the enemy within.
“The expectation that pours down on England players at a World Cup has always been immense, because their media pack jumps at the chance to build up the hype before a ball has been kicked. They are also desperate to hammer the players and the manager when it all goes wrong.”
Damien Duff’s appointment as assistant coach with Premier League Brentford has been welcomed across Irish football as the Ireland hero joins former international colleague Keith Andrews at the Gtech Community Stadium.
In his Irish Times column, writer Malachy Clerkin speculates how Duff’s unique management style will fit into Brentford’s style of coaching and asks: “Where does all that fit into the algorithm? What do the xG models say about it?
“Brentford are all about the system and the framework, about finding inefficiencies in the way things are done and exploiting them. Duff’s occasional wild tendencies look like a glitch in the matrix compared to all that.
“Or maybe we’re looking at it the wrong way entirely. Maybe this is exactly why they’re interested. Could this be the next frontier in analytics? Could it be that football clubs have been undervaluing mad bastards all along? It will be fun to find out.”
