When Roberto Lopes received a seemingly random LinkedIn message in 2018, he assumed it was spam and ignored it.
At the time, Lopes—nicknamed “Pico”—was working at a Dublin bank while playing part-time for Shamrock Rovers, an Irish soccer club. Born to an Irish mother and a Cape Verdean father, he had unknowingly been flagged by Cape Verde national team coach Rui Aguas, who was searching for eligible players to bolster the squad of the small West African island nation.
