Sitting in Dublin Airport’s arrivals hall before Roberto “Pico” Lopes’s homecoming, Joe Cody was gripping something tightly in his hand.
Wearing a Shamrock Rovers jersey, he unfurled his palm to show a miniature gold trophy.
“I went to the Lego Store and got him this,” he said.
His grandmother, Angela Farrelly, said the nine-year-old is a “big fan of Pico’s”, who is her neighbour.
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“He went to our house for tea, I’d say last month maybe, and he actually passed a rugby ball with me,” Joe said. “He calls me ‘bud’.”
The young supporter was one of dozens of fans, family members, friends and neighbours to welcome Lopes home on Monday after his last match in the World Cup with Cape Verde, and some of them recalled how the 34-year-old “always had a ball” growing up.
The team lost to Argentina 3-2 in Miami on Friday, with Judy Lopes, his mother, saying they “went out against the giants”.
“It was a case of David versus Goliath,” she said, having arrived home to Dublin from the US two hours prior.
The past weeks and months have been a “whirlwind” but a “complete fairy tale”.
Lopes, who was born and raised in Crumlin in Dublin, was recruited to the Cape Verde team through his father, a native of the island country off the coast of Africa.
Before his arrival, Carlos Lopes was wearing a Cape Verde hat and jersey, handing out stickers featuring his son.
He said it was “fantastic” not only to have his native country qualify for the World Cup for the first time, but for his son to be on the team.
“That was Pico’s dream since he was a young kid, to become a footballer.”
Noting that the “party started” in Cape Verde when the team qualified in October, he believes it will “go on for the next six months”.
Lopes’s wife, Leah O’Shaughnessy, standing nearby, simply said it “all feels a bit mad”.
“This is all just alien to me,” she said, holding on to her eight-month-old son Diego’s pram.
“I just can’t get over everything he’s after achieving.
“It’s just really heartwarming to see how much the country has gotten behind him. He’s very proud to be Cape Verdean, and he’s very, very proud to be Irish as well, so it’s gorgeous to see the two nations getting behind him.”
Walking into the arrivals hall on Monday afternoon, Lopes was met by chants of “Pico”, cheers, applause and both Cape Verde and Shamrock Rovers flags and jerseys.
Holding his young son, he told reporters that he “couldn’t have asked for any better”.
“We wanted to go out there and show that we deserve to be there and I think we showed the world that,” he said, as Diego attempted to grab multiple microphones pointing towards his father, saying: “Dada.”
“Football aside, no one will have to ask where Cape Verde is again. That’s the pride that people will share in it and for me, that’s really special,” Lopes said.
His time in the World Cup was a “dream” that “became reality”.
“To run it so close, it was gutting, but I suppose when the dust settled, we realised what we achieved and that was amazing,” he said.
“Watching Lionel Messi over the years, I always thought the closest I’d ever get to him was maybe to go to a match and see him. I never thought I’d share the same pitch with him, and give him a shove.”
Moments later, nine-year-old Joe Cody approached Lopes, giving him the miniature gold trophy before receiving a hug.
