World Cup stories are usually built around superstars.

Spain arrived in the United States as one of the tournament favourites, armed with a squad worth hundreds of millions and packed with players from Europe’s biggest clubs. Cabo Verde arrived as first-time World Cup participants simply hoping to prove they belonged on the same stage.

Ninety minutes later, the underdogs had held Spain to a shock 0-0 draw.

One of the defenders behind that result was not discovered in a famous academy, signed after a scouting mission or developed by a European giant.

His journey to the World Cup started with a LinkedIn message.

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The Message He Almost Ignored

The player behind the story is Roberto Lopes, an Irish-born defender whose path to the World Cup was anything but ordinary.

Getty

Lopes was playing club football in Ireland when a message appeared in his LinkedIn inbox.

Cabo Verde coach Rui Águas had discovered that Lopes qualified to represent the country through his father and wanted to know whether he would be interested in joining the national team.

The message was written in Portuguese. Lopes did not reply. He thought it was spam.

Months later, Águas followed up. Lopes translated the original message, realised it was genuine and eventually said yes. What looked like an easy message to ignore turned into a national team call-up.

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From Mortgage Adviser To World Cup Defender

Before all of this, Lopes was not living like a future World Cup player.

Reuters

He had worked as a mortgage adviser in Dublin and was playing part-time football before Shamrock Rovers gave him the chance to turn professional. His path already looked different from the usual academy-to-superstar route.

Then Cabo Verde entered the picture. Lopes went on to become a regular for the national team, helping a country of just over half a million people reach its first World Cup. That alone would have made his story worth telling.

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Now the draw against Spain has pushed it into another category.

Cabo Verde earned a night that will be remembered back home for years, while Lopes became the face of one of the tournament’s most unlikely backstories.

Some players reach the World Cup through elite academies, famous scouts and multi-million-dollar transfers. Roberto Lopes got there because he opened a LinkedIn message he nearly dismissed as spam.