It took Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha 40 years to make his FIFA World Cup debut. Was the wait worth it? Vozinha said absolutely yes, after playing a pivotal role in his team’s 0-0 draw against European champions Spain on Monday. The 40-year-old was everywhere as the Spanish team and its fans became increasingly frustrated at their failure to break the deadlock, despite dominating possession and unleashing a mind-boggling 27 shots. Not even the second-half introduction of the young superstar from Barcelona, Lamine Yamal, could crack the code to get past Vozinha and the Cape Verde defence.
As the final whistle blew, Vozinha hunched over near his net and cried, before being embraced by his teammates. Cape Verde, in its first-ever World Cup match, had earned a point against Spain, one of the title favourites of the campaign. Speaking to the media after the match, Vozinha, who had slightly fewer than 50,000 followers on Instagram, was informed that his fan count had increased multifold.
When Vozinha realised he had gained 1.5 million followers because of the Spain game… pic.twitter.com/v3v2OAubT9
— Out of Context Football Manager (@nocontextfm1) June 15, 2026
By the time Vozinha came out for a post-match chat, the number of his followers on Instagram had gone past 1.5 million. By the time of writing this, the number of his followers was closing in on the 5 million mark.
The performance was a culmination of a career that didn’t even start until Vozinha made his professional team debut at the age of 25 for Angola’s Progresso. Since then, he’s had club stops at Moldova, Cyprus, Slovakia and Portugal, where he currently plays for Chaves in the Portuguese second division.
He joined the national team in 2012 and at times, Vozinha said, he thought about retiring from the national team, but he “continued because of this dream.”
“I work all my life for this, for this moment, for this dream,” said Vozinha. “A lot of generations in the past (dreamed of) this day but they did not achieve. And now the dream comes true.”
The word “vozinha” is Portuguese for “grandmother,” and the goalkeeper said he was given the nickname by older kids who would bully him on the soccer field and then laugh when he went home crying to his grandparents. Years later, he took on the nickname after someone else on his club also had the same first name, Josimar.
With AP inputs