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Vozinha, the goalkeeper who caused a sensation with Cape Verde in the recently concluded World Cup, will be a new player for Colo Colo, the company that manages the Chilean team confirmed on Friday.
“Vozinha is going to be a Colo Colo player, in the coming days he will travel to Chile, he will undergo the rigorous medical exams as required, and then he will be presented here at the Estadio Monumental,” asserted the president of Blanco y Negro SA, Aníbal Mosa, who spoke to reporters.
Mosa added that the 40-year-old goalkeeper “meets the conditions to be here at Colo Colo.” He also acknowledged that the deal “has marketing benefits,” but stressed that Vozinha “comes from having a very good World Cup.”
“We are also interested because it puts our club on the world map,” he acknowledged.
The official warned that final details are still being fine-tuned. However, he claimed to have confirmation from the player's representatives to finalize the deal.
The news arrived minutes before the start of Friday's match, in which Colo Colo faced Deportes Limache.
Vozinha, whose real name is Josimar Dias, attracted the attention of the football world on June 15 with an outstanding performance in Cape Verde's 0-0 draw against Spain, the European champions who were crowned on Sunday. It was the first World Cup match in Cape Verde's history.
Subsequently, Cape Verde drew 2-2 with Uruguay, one of the South American powerhouses, and 0-0 with Saudi Arabia. They were eliminated in the Round of 16 in a match where the Cape Verdean national team took Lionel Messi's Argentina to extra time.
Vozinha made his professional debut at age 25 with Progresso in Angola. Since then, he has played for clubs in Moldova, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Portugal.
His last club was Chaves in the second Portuguese league, where he played for 2 years and left as a free agent.
The goalkeeper joined the national team in 2012. He said that, at times, he thought about retiring from the national team, but “continued for this dream” of playing in the World Cup.
The word “vozinha” in Portuguese means “little grandma.” The goalkeeper explained that he was given the nickname by some older kids who bullied him on the soccer field and laughed when he went home crying to his grandparents.
Years later, he adopted the nickname because another person at his club also had the same first name, Josimar.
The goalkeeper became one of the most charismatic figures of the recent World Cup, to the point that his Instagram followers shot up from around 50,000 to over 2.4 million just hours after the match against Spain.
He currently has 29.5 million followers. Vozinha is the second World Cup sensation to move to South America after the tournament.
Last week, star New Zealand defender Tim Payne, 32, was officially presented by the Paraguayan club Olimpia. Payne, who went viral due to comments from a football influencer shortly before the World Cup, is expected to debut this weekend. New Zealand was eliminated in the group stage of the global tournament.
[Publicidad]