Vozinha, the Brazil goalkeeper in Cape Verde’s setup, made seven saves in a 0-0 World Cup draw with Spain in Atlanta last week. He stopped six shots from inside the box and helped Cape Verde leave with a point in its first World Cup appearance.
Vozinha and Spain in Atlanta
The 40-year-old finished the match with the kind of line that turns a result into a story: seven saves, six of them from inside the box. Cape Verde spent the night without conceding, and Vozinha’s work kept Spain off the scoreboard through the full 90 minutes.
For Cape Verde, the draw landed like more than a draw. A first-time World Cup participant held one of the tournament’s recognized powers to 0-0, and the goalkeeper at the center of it became the face of the result almost immediately.
CazéTV and the follower surge
The spike started during the match, when CazéTV urged viewers to follow Vozinha on Instagram. He began the game with 46,210 followers. Within minutes of the final whistle, that number had reached 1 million, and by nightfall it was 5 million.
By the time the story was published, he had 15.4 million followers. Cape Verde’s draw with Spain was treated like a victory, but the episode also showed how quickly a strong performance can be amplified far beyond the pitch.
That amplification sits beside a longer career arc. Vozinha, born Josimar Jose Evora Dias, began his professional career at age 25 in Cape Verde and in Portugal, later played in Angola, Cyprus, Moldova and Slovakia, and won the 2018-2019 Cypriot Cup with AEL Limassol.
Josimar Jose Evora Dias
His background gives the nickname more weight than the social-media rush alone. Vozinha told FIFA in 2024 that he never lived with his parents and grew up with his grandparents, and he said the nickname comes from that family setting. His father wanted to name him Valdano after Jorge Valdano, but Cape Verdean authorities reportedly would not permit the name.
The wider setting helps explain why the draw carried so much force. Cape Verde is a small Atlantic nation of roughly 530,000 people, and Vozinha had already kept Cape Verde from conceding in all five of its home games in World Cup qualifying in Africa. This was the night his shot-stopping and his story left the stadium at the same time.
