Maha Christopher
Cape Verde defender Roberto Lopes has revealed that his international football journey began with an unexpected message on LinkedIn after he initially ignored what he thought was spam.
Speaking in a video shared by Sky Sports, Lopes explained that the Cape Verde national team first contacted him through the professional networking platform while he was still playing club football.
“I’m sure, like, many people have heard it before, but how I was contacted to play in the national team was through LinkedIn,” Lopes said.
The defender said the profile had been created years earlier while he was in college and had largely been forgotten when he received a message from then Cape Verde manager Rui Águas.
“It was a profile I set up when I was in college many years ago. The manager at the time, Rui Águas, contacted me and sent me a message in Portuguese, which I didn’t understand at the time,” he said.
According to Lopes, he ignored the message because he assumed it was unsolicited spam.
“Through my ignorance, I ignored it. I just thought it was spam and thought nothing of it,” he added.
However, the former manager later reached out again, this time in English, allowing Lopes to understand the opportunity being presented to him.
“But thankfully, nine months later, he wrote back to me in English, and I understood what the message meant,” Lopes said.
“I apologised so much to him and said if the opportunity is still there to play international football for Cape Verde, I’d love to be a part of it.”
The defender said the process moved quickly after that, with the necessary paperwork completed within weeks.
“Thankfully it was, and I think a few weeks later, we got the paperwork done and I was playing for them in Marseille against Togo,” he recalled.
Lopes has since become a key figure for Cape Verde and is part of the squad making history at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. His story has attracted renewed attention following the country’s impressive performances on football’s biggest stage.
