World Cup star nearly missed call-up after ignoring LinkedIn 'spam'

SHAH ALAM - Imagine receiving a LinkedIn message that could take you to the FIFA World Cup and ignoring it because you thought it was spam. That is exactly what happened to Roberto Lopes.

The Cape Verde defender, who helped his country hold football powerhouse Spain to a 0-0 draw at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, nearly never made it onto the squad, all because of an unread message.

Back in 2019, then-Cape Verde coach Rui Aguas discovered that Lopes, who was playing for Irish side Shamrock Rovers and had previously worked in banking, was eligible to represent the African nation through his father.

Aguas decided to reach out to Lopes through LinkedIn rather than through an agent or football federation official. But there was one major issue: the message was written in Portuguese, a language Lopes does not speak.

Assuming it was just another suspicious message buried among countless spam requests, he ignored it.

"I thought it was a spam message and I took no notice of it," Lopes told BBC Sport.

It was not until nine months later, when Aguas sent a follow-up message asking whether he had considered the invitation, that Lopes finally decided to run the text through Google Translate — and realised it was a genuine call-up to represent Cape Verde.

"Hi Roberto, have you had a chance to consider what I said to you?" Aguas wrote.

Curious this time, Lopes copied the message into Google Translate. The moment he realised what it actually said, everything changed.

"I was absolutely buzzing with that. I was like, 'Yep, 100 per cent I'd love to be a part of the squad,'" he told BBC Sport.

Just like that, a LinkedIn message went from looking like a scam to becoming the start of a World Cup journey.

In an era where inboxes are flooded with bots, cold pitches and random networking requests, it is not hard to understand why Lopes ignored the first message. Most people barely check LinkedIn unless they are job hunting.

But Cape Verde's story is a reminder that sometimes life-changing opportunities do not arrive wrapped in fancy packaging. Sometimes, they look suspiciously like spam.

Had Aguas decided not to follow up, Cape Verde might have walked onto the world's biggest football stage without one of its key players.

Instead, persistence paid off.

Now, the tiny island nation of just over half a million people has one of the tournament's most unforgettable stories, proving that sometimes, all it takes is a second message, a Google Translate search and a willingness to reply.

The real lesson? Check your LinkedIn inbox once in a while. You never know if the World Cup is trying to contact you.