“We may be small, but we have big hearts, we are fighters,” said the proud captain after his wee team defied all the odds and all the doubters to stretch their summer in to July. That was Vozinha, captain of Cape Verde, talking. But sure look it, it could just as easily have been Louth skipper Sam Mulroy. Because when you think about it, Louth are the Cape Verde of the football championship and Cape Verde are the Louth of the World Cup. The Wee-est in both competitions. “This is off the charts,” said Brian Fenton of their quarter-final triumph over Monaghan – Louth’s, not Cape Verde’s. The feat was all the more impressive in light of them playing with 14 men for 63-ish minutes to reach their first All-Ireland semi-final since 1957. And it was, on the whole, an off-the-charts quarter-final weekend, finishing up with the Dubs coming back from six down to win by four. “The Jacks are back,” Brian beamed, even threatening to hug goalkeeper Evan Comerford when he joined the RTÉ crew for a chat at their breakfast bar at the side of the Croke Park pitch. The sun was beaming, Hill 16 was teeming, Con O’Callaghan was scheming, Ger Brennan was dreaming – for those who thought the Dubs were done and dusted, it was like an episode of Reeling in the Years. And just to add to Sunday’s enjoyment, how could we ever tire of hearing Ger Canning announce that Seán Fitzgerald was unavailable for Galway not because of, say, a hamstring tweak, rather that “he’s on Love Island duty”? “I wasn’t expecting to hear the words ‘Love Island’ ever come out of Ger Canning’s mouth, but there you have it,” as Joanne Cantwell put it. By the time the draw for the semi-finals was made, Brian was a bit less beamy, the Dubs having been paired with Kerry, Tomás Ó Sé trying really hard, but failing, to look worried. Pico Lopes celebrates with an Irish flag after Cape Verde's draw with Saudi Arabia saw them seal a place in the last 32 of the World Cup. Photograph: Francois Nel/Getty Images That’s pretty much like being drawn against Argentina in the World Cup’s first knock-out round, especially when they feature the David Clifford of soccer-ball. What’ll it be like coming up against Lionel Messi? Even the widest widescreen telly couldn’t have captured the entire width of Pico Lopes’s grin when he popped up on RTÉ after Cape Verdes’ draw with Saudi Arabia. “Would you believe, I got called for doping,” he said on his FaceTime chat with his Shamrock Rovers gaffer Stephen Bradley after the game. “Do you know,” Bradley replied “after your last three performances – and how you passed the ball – I’d be giving you a test as well.”England, of course, have progressed too, their place in the last 32 sealed even before they played Panama. Every four years, incidentally, you can’t but feel for Sky Sports, their lack of World Cup broadcasting rights reducing them to standing outside England’s team hotel and reporting any form of movement. “This morning we saw Thomas Tuchel and some of his coaches going for an early-morning coffee,” Kaveh Solhekol reported from outside their New Jersey hotel, the wonder being that Sky didn’t plonk “BREAKING NEWS: TUCHEL GOES FOR A COFFEE” on the screen. “And we got a glimpse of Jordan Henderson and Anthony Gordon going out for a walk to stretch their legs and to get a coffee as well.” Whatever you’re paying for your subscription, it isn’t enough.Anyway, England got the job done against Panama, if a little unconvincingly, Saint Jude rescuing them when they were beginning to look like a lost cause. “It’s just like watching Scotland,” said our Roy at half-time in as brutal an assessment of a team’s performance as any pundit could ever muster. Jude Bellingham celebrates scoring England's opening goal against Panama on Saturday. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images Their struggles were, of course, largely down to the fate-tempting of the ITV commentary pairing of Sam Matterface (“Panama are only playing for pride and want to hold on for as long as possible”) and Lee Dixon (“You feel like if England get one, they’ll get two or three”). Sam had already intimated that he didn’t regard DR Congo, England’s last-32 opponents, as a tremendous threat. “We don’t want to bump in to Spain in the last 16!”The harshest review of England on the night came from CBS pundit Mike Grella who, after watching the game, turned to (small-budget alert) Troy Deeney and Nigel Reo-Coker and asked: “Do you guys ever think you’re just not that good at football?” Cold.