Colo Colo have signed the goalkeeper who considered walking away from the Cape Verde national team.
Anibal Mosa, president of the Chilean champions, confirmed the deal on 26 July, saying Josimar José Évora Dias, known everywhere as Vozinha, would travel to Chile for a medical before being unveiled at the Estadio Monumental.
He is 40. Six weeks ago he had no club at all, his contract with Portuguese second-tier side Chaves having expired shortly before the World Cup began.
“It was a very hard time”
The story that ended in Santiago began, more or less, with him nearly quitting the national team.
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Cape Verde failed to qualify for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. Vozinha was left out for the qualifying campaign, with Bruno Varela preferred, and the side finished bottom of its group.
In an interview with Goalkeeper.com, quoted by The Spokesman-Review, he described how close he came to walking away.
“It was a very hard time. I was thinking of stopping with the national team.”
“All my team-mates talked to me, they encouraged me to stay because of the World Cup. I stayed because of that, because it was my dream, the dream of all of us.”
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Seven saves against Spain
He kept goal in Cape Verde’s opening group match against Spain on 15 June and made seven saves in a 0-0 draw. Spain had 27 shots, seven of them on target, and Vozinha was named man of the match.
Cape Verde then kept a second clean sheet against Saudi Arabia; between them the two performances made Vozinha the third-oldest goalkeeper to keep a clean sheet in a men’s World Cup match, behind only Peter Shilton and Dino Zoff.
Cape Verde, a country of roughly half a million people, became the smallest nation ever to reach the knockout stage of a World Cup, and the first debutants to do so since Slovakia in 2010.
They went out on 3 July against Argentina, 3-2 after extra time. Vozinha made eight saves in that match, twice denying Lionel Messi from a free-kick, and Cape Verde came back twice before a Messi corner deflected off defender Diney Borges in the 111th minute.
From Batuque FC to five countries
The picture of Vozinha in a Colo Colo shirt sits oddly next to the one from a decade ago. He was working as an electrician and playing when he could, when most of his peers had already given up on turning professional.
He did not sign his first professional contract until his mid-twenties, with Cape Verdean club Batuque FC, then moved through Angola, Moldova, Portugal, Cyprus and Slovakia before returning to Chaves in 2024.
Vozinha told CBS News after Cape Verde’s elimination that the tournament had rearranged his sense of what was possible.
“I’m very grateful and very happy for everything that happened in my life. I never expected any of this. It’s been crazy, insane.”
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“I want to keep playing for at least another one or two years, depending on how my body feels.”
From 50,000 followers to nearly 30 million
His Instagram following grew from about 50,000 to close to 30 million during the tournament, and he was named in FIFA’s Team of the Tournament.
He was also clear about what he wanted from the offers that followed.
“I hope I can find a club that wants me because I’m a football player, not because I’m a marketing person.”
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Colo Colo currently lead the Chilean Primera División by 10 points. Vozinha’s medical is expected in Santiago this week.
