Sitting in Dublin Airport’s arrivals hall before Roberto “Pico” Lopes’s homecoming, Joe Cody was gripping something tightly in his hand.Wearing a Shamrock Rovers jersey, he unfurled his palm to show a miniature gold trophy.“I went to the Lego Store and got him this,” he said.His grandmother, Angela Farrelly, said the nine-year-old is a “big fan of Pico’s”, who is her neighbour.“He went to our house for tea, I’d say last month maybe, and he actually passed a rugby ball with me,” Joe said. “He calls me ‘bud’.”The young supporter was one of dozens of fans, family members, friends and neighbours to welcome Lopes home on Monday after his last match in the World Cup with Cape Verde, and some of them recalled how the 34-year-old “always had a ball” growing up.The team lost to Argentina 3-2 in Miami on Friday, with Judy Lopes, his mother, saying they “went out against the giants”.“It was a case of David versus Goliath,” she said, having arrived home to Dublin from the US two hours prior.The past weeks and months have been a “whirlwind” but a “complete fairy tale”.Lopes, who was born and raised in Crumlin in Dublin, was recruited to the Cape Verde team through his father, a native of the island country off the coast of Africa.Before his arrival, Carlos Lopes was wearing a Cape Verde hat and jersey, handing out stickers featuring his son.Pico Lopes with parents Carlos and Judy and his wife Leah (right) and eight-month-old son Diego as he returns home to Dublin Airport. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire Pico Lopes arriving back at Dublin Airport. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times