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Piko Lopez

Piko Lopez

Professional footballer for Shamrock Rovers FC and captain of the Cape Verde national team; born in Dublin, represented Ireland in World Cup 2026 qualification.

Jun 16, 2026

20:36
There's people at home comparing your performance to Paul McGrath's in USA '94 with some of those blocks.
20:41
Yeah.
20:41
[laughs] Yeah.
20:41
No, I don't think it, it was that good.
20:43
Look, I'm probably a bit rusty.
20:44
That's my first 90 minutes since, uh, since April.
20:47
Uh, so I was happy to get under the belt.
22:28
That's why you text all of them.
speaker_15UNKNOWN
38:45
That must make you feel very proud in itself.
38:48
Yeah, like, it, it's, it's incredible.
38:49
I know the, the story has probably got a few spins now at this stage, like, but it's, it really is the stuff of dreams.
38:54
It's like I've always wanted to be a professional footballer, and I think even the, the journey to get to there, like, is, you have to go through just the probably struggles of, of part-time and, and working and where our league was at, like, a few years ago to how it's, how it's developed.
39:05
And it really is a story of progression, which makes me a lot happy 'cause every day I want to try and get better as a footballer, like, and these little steps of, of progression, like, where you're 12 is like you're becoming a full-time footballer.
39:17
You're qualifying for Europa League, uh, competitions, Conference League, Champions League, and then to become an international footballer, uh, albeit through a, a social media message.
39:26
For me, it's, it's, it's really satisfying to show that, like, progression 'cause it means that, yeah, I continue to try and improve every day.

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