It’s the final minute of overtime in World Cup debutant Cape Verde’s knockout match against the tournament’s reigning champion Argentina. Supporters of the small island nation off the west coast of Africa are hugely outnumbered in the 50,000 seater Miami Stadium, ringing with South American cheers. It’s 3-2 to the overwhelming favourites, and the underdog team is tiring after two hours of world-class football. Hopes were running high just a few minutes ago. Now, morale seems to be rather low. But at the bottom of a short cul-de-sac of 16 houses in Crumlin, Dublin 12, there is a small community of neighbours. Sat in rows of garden furniture facing the side wall of a house, with RTÉ’s coverage of the match being projected on it, they’re offering the Cape Verde team a standing ovation.The applause goes on for some time. Discussion varies from how close the final score was to how tough the loss feels and, ultimately, how great the game was. But the most common phrase at nearly 1:45am Dublin time is: ‘Good man Pico’.The side wall belongs to the house in which Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes grew up. Under ordinary circumstances, Lopes may have spent this Friday night captaining Shamrock Rovers in its League of Ireland 2-1 victory against Sligo Rovers. But, instead, he was on the other side of the Atlantic, representing his father’s home country on the biggest stage in football.Cape Verde supporters celebrate their team's first goal during the World Cup Round of 32 match between Argentina and Cape Verde in Dublin, where local residents gathered to watch the World Cup Round of 32 match between Argentina and Cape Verde. Photograph: Natalia Campos for The Irish Times “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person,” says Sheena Heavy, a long-time neighbour of the Lopes family who has organised outdoor watch parties of every Cape Verde World Cup match on the small green space tucked at the bottom of the road.“Nice things happen to nice people – and they are nice people,” she simply says. She’s surrounded by 50 or so others, mostly neighbours but also close family friends. “Once Pico got selected for the Cape Verde team, I said, as neighbours, it would be nice to do something, maybe throw up a few flags. And as time went on, I said, well, let’s do a little more, let’s have a bit of a street party,” she adds.Heavy says “it just grew legs from there”. [ ‘Now the flag is everywhere’: how World Cup success has changed life in Cape VerdeOpens in new window ]“It’s the power of community, really. It makes you so proud to be Irish, doesn’t it? Things like this really bring the community together,” she goes on. “Look at everybody, we should have charged for parking,” she laughs.The only time there’s a sign of discontent between the neighbours is when the RTÉ coverage lags and skips. It’s being shown by a projector and bluetooth speaker, hooked up via a chromecast in Alan McGovern’s front room that sometimes lets itself down.But McGovern says he’s not to blame. “The RTÉ Player is a little bit dodge. If it’s playing for about 20, 25 minutes, it can start stuttering. And every time it stutters, my name gets shouted to go fix it.”The pressure on McGovern to ensure the wifi is strong “is probably a good bit higher” than the expectation on Lopes to block Lionel Messi’s goals, he jokes. “It feels like every time there’s the chance of a goal, or a shot of Pico in defence, it stutters and we miss it,” he adds, but his neighbours are “generally understanding” and cut him some slack.Cape Verde supporters react while watching the World Cup Round of 32 match between Argentina and Cape Verde in Dublin, where local residents gathered to watch the World Cup Round of 32 match between Argentina and Cape Verde. Photograph: Natalia Campos for The Irish Times For most of the match, the cul-de-sac spectators were on the edge of their lawn chairs. Whenever Cape Verde scored, the green erupted into celebrations so loud and so joyful that they would make even the biggest Argentina ultra in Miami Stadium that night look timid.Once the final whistle was blown, the first reaction of those who stayed up late enough to hear it was to stand and clap. After that, the garden furniture was quickly brought back into each house and the shared food and drink was thrown into bin bags. But the Cape Verde flags stayed on the lamp-posts, with no signs of being brought down any time soon.