There’s only one story in town today, or out of town as it happens, and there will be no apology for stating that this is an Irish World Cup story about a proud Dubliner who will play against the greatest player playing our game when Cape Verde take on champions Argentina in Miami on Friday night.
The World Cup round of 32 fixture will be played at what is normally known as the Hard Rock Stadium, sanitised to the Miami Stadium by FIFA, and a hard rock is exactly what I would like to throw at those right wingers besmirching our definition of Irishness on social media right now.
I’d love to spend the next 500 words or so ranting about some idiot from a right wing liberal crew who is trying to tell the world that Pico Lopes isn’t Irish but I’m not going to. The idiot - and I say that without having ever read an article he has written if indeed that’s what he normally does - isn’t going to get any oxygen from me.
Instead, I am going to tell two more stories about Crumlin’s Pico, a man whose father Carlos was born on one of the smallest Cape Verdean islands and found his way to Dublin via the high seas and with a heart seeking love.
That love found its home in the arms of his now Irish wife Judie - or J-Lo as the Six O’Clock Show on Virgin Media christened Pico’s mum on Wednesday night, a name that is going to stick.
Neither Carlos nor Judie have a sporting bone in their body but their son does. But they will be the proudest parents in Ireland and the world when they board an Aer Lingus flight for Orlando on Thursday afternoon and take their first steps on the return journey to watch their eldest in World Cup action again, marking Messi of all people.
Dublin to Orlando is a long flight. So is the journey from Niigata to Tallaght, a journey that first began for Japanese journalist Kosuke Inagaki back in 2002 on the day Matt Holland scored the equaliser for Ireland against Cameroon in the World Cup opener, a goal that relieved so much of the Saipan stress engulfing the Irish squad and Mick McCarthy.
Kosuke Inagaki found love that day in Niigata, a love for Irish football that has stayed with him ever since. He has kept his eye out for the Boys in Green, watched from afar as we waited and waited for a return to the World Cup stage, a thirst only partially quenched by the European finals in 2012 and 2016.
When Cape Verde qualified for these World Cup finals last October, Kosuke took notice. And he hatched a plan with his editors to travel to Ireland and join the dots between Ireland and the story of one of the smallest nations qualifying for one of the world’s biggest sporting events.
That’s why Kosuke arrived in Dublin in the middle of April for the Dublin derby between Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians, the winner of what us golfers call the long drive competition and by a distance.
Pico took some time out before the game to chat with Kosuke. He made time after the game to complete their interview at Tallaght Stadium. And we listened with amazement as Kosuke shared that Niigata story and I realised we had sat near each other in the same press box on the afternoon of Matt Holland’s most important goal.
Such is the wonder of football that we were now chatting away in Dublin some 24 years later!
Kosuke wasn’t the only person Pico welcomed to Dublin that night as Rovers beat Bohs 2-1. A young girl from Glasgow by the name of Lilly had got in touch a few months earlier. Her wish was to bring her granddad Michael back home to Tallaght to see Rovers play and meet the man whose World Cup success he had taken so much pride in back in late 2025.
That wish was granted. Pico chatted with them both after the game, had his photo taken and presented Michael with his signed shirt to mark one man’s return to his native Dublin.
These stories didn’t happen because Pico Lopes is Irish and Cape Verdean. They aren’t shared here because I want to make him out as some latter day Irish saint.
They are here because I want you to know the other side of Pico Lopes, footballer at times and gentleman always. I share these stories because they make me proud of his Irishness.
I will be proud to be Irish and I will shouting for Pico and Cape Verde on Friday night. Anyone who has a problem with that can do one!
