New Delhi, June 20 -- A seemingly random LinkedIn message in 2018 changed the world for Roberto Lopes, a Dublin bank employee who played part-time for an Irish soccer club, Shamrock Rovers.

Lopes, nicknamed "Pico", was contacted by the Cape Verde national team coach, Rui Aguas, via LinkedIn. He was looking for eligible soccer players for the squad of the small West African island nation.

But Lopes, born to an Irish mother and a Cape Verdean father, assumed the message was spam and ignored it. Aguas followed up again after nine months, this time in English, and said if Pico had seen his earlier message.

Lopes told BBC Sport that he copied the initial message and put it into Google Translate. It basically said, "We're looking at getting ...