The mother of Roberto ‘Pico’ Lopes has said she “couldn’t be more proud” of her son and his Cape Verde team-mates after they took Argentina down to the wire in their World Cup match in Miami on Friday night.Argentina, who claimed the tournament in 2022, only won the tight match 3-2 following an own goal in extra time. It was the first time Cape Verde, a small island nation off the west coast of Africa, qualified for the World Cup.Lopes, who was born and raised in Crumlin in Dublin, was recruited to play for Cape Verde as his father Carlos is from there. The Shamrock Rovers captain and former mortgage adviser played the full 120 minutes last night, going toe to toe with Lionel Messi. His mother, Judy Lopes, on Saturday said her family was “disappointed with the result, not the performance”, which she described as “tremendous”.Judy Lopes told the Brendan O’Connor show on RTÉ Radio 1 that Cape Verde “gave everything that they could” and “didn’t leave anything on the pitch”.Pico Lopes' mother Judy with his mother-in-law Barbara at an earlier World Cup match holding a sign given to her by pupils at the school she works in Speaking from Miami, she said she thought Cape Verde could have equalised and taken the round-of-32 match to penalties if they had an extra few minutes. Noting how Cape Verde came back from being a goal down twice in the match, Judy Lopes said the team “showed great character and resilience”. She said her son’s team “played with passion and desire” and “made Argentina look very average”, adding: “I think Argentina were lucky to go through in the end.”She said Pico was “disappointed” with the result but will “be back to business” soon.[ At 1.45am Crumlin time, Cape Verde’s Pico Lopes gets a standing ovationOpens in new window ]“Within a day or two, he’ll be ready to go again, returning to Rovers, and prepare for next week’s match, and then the European football, which is due to kick off soon – that’s his nature,” she said.“He will reflect and hopefully, you know, be delighted with all that he’s achieved.”She described the last few weeks as a “fairytale” but said her son was “not an overnight success” and had “played consistently at a very high level” in Europe for the last decade.She thanked the public for their “terrific” support, saying the atmosphere in Crumlin and beyond in recent weeks was “almost reminiscent of Italia ‘90” when Ireland defied the odds and reached the quarter-finals of that World Cup. There have been calls for a public homecoming ceremony to be arranged for Pico Lopes in Dublin.Charlie McConalogue, Minister of State at the Department of Sport, said the Government would liaise with Dublin City Council about a potential event.[ ‘Now the flag is everywhere’: how World Cup success has changed life in Cape VerdeOpens in new window ]Speaking on RTÉ Radio, he said Lopes was “phenomenal” throughout the tournament.“When he captained Shamrock Rovers last year to the double, the league and [FAI] cup double, I would say he thought that was going to be a highlight of his career,” McConalogue said, adding that “marking Messi last night as a League of Ireland player ... at a knockout round at the World Cup” might surpass that.