Cape Verde's big step up 'If you're: oh, it's Messi... you're gonna lose your mind'

Defender Sidny Lopes Cabral on defying the odds, rising above racism and taking on champions Argentina tonight

- Sid Lowe

Cape Verde liked the odds, and so did Sidny Lopes Cabral. ‘‘They gave us a 1% chance of reaching the next round, but we showed how big 1% is,’’ the defender says.

He has always known there was a chance however small it looked, in Rotterdam or anywhere: in Germany, where he froze in the fifth tier earning £850 a month, using bin bags for curtains, and in America, too. His mates told him he was crazy; he told his mum not to worry. ‘‘I always told them: ‘Hey, I’m gonna be a great football player; I’m gonna reach the top.’ And I’m living in my dream now.’’

Now, the team representing a group of islands home to 500,000 people, the story of this World Cup, face the champions. And Lopes Cabral, the left-back and the second-youngest player in the squad at 23, faces arguably the best footballer of all time. ‘‘I hope I get some nice pictures of me standing next to him,’’ Lopes Cabral says. ‘‘I have no words to describe how I feel, how we all do. Back in Cape Verde, every game there are parties. In the Netherlands, in France, everywhere Cape Verdean people live. In Rotterdam it’s crazy.’’