MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In any given week, there could be a main character, someone or something the internet is obsessed with. Now, I often have no idea who this person or thing is. But NPR's Mia Venkat does, and she's here. Hey, Mia.
MIA VENKAT, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: I have a sneaking suspicion that you have brought me a main character of the week that might be World Cup related.
VENKAT: You would be right.
KELLY: Excellent.
VENKAT: I have a lovely main character for you this week. It's the Cabo Verde team's goalkeeper, Josimar Jose Evora Dias, better known as Vozinha. He's become a viral sensation this week after his incredible performance in the Cabo Verde opening match at the World Cup.
KELLY: Which I was watching - it was against Spain.
VENKAT: Yes.
KELLY: And his performance was electrifying, why?
VENKAT: Well, Spain is the No. 2 ranked team, and Cabo Verde is 67th.
KELLY: Right.
VENKAT: This is their first World Cup.
KELLY: This is a David and Goliath scenario.
VENKAT: Exactly. And unsurprisingly, Spain is one of the favorite teams to win the whole thing. This was supposed to be a no-questions-asked landslide victory for Spain.
KELLY: OK.
VENKAT: And yet, Spain could not score a single goal against Cabo Verde. The Spanish players had the ball for most of the game, as you saw. They had almost 30 shots, but they just couldn't get one in.
KELLY: Till (ph) they're just, like, shooting, shooting...
VENKAT: Shooting, shooting.
KELLY: ...Shooting, shooting, shooting. And this guy...
VENKAT: Against a brick wall in the back (ph).
KELLY: ...Is like a forcefield repelling them.
VENKAT: (Laughter) That's exactly right.
KELLY: But I will note that I started watching because my 22-year-old son, who is a soccer fanatic, was texting me from Greece, saying, this may be the greatest day in the history of Cabo Verde. Like, people everywhere were bringing it up, so I turned it on.
VENKAT: People were losing their minds. The internet completely lit up after this game with praise for him and the Cabo Verdean team. They, like you said, love this David vs. Goliath story, like this post from TikTok creator Diez Ball.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK VIDEO)
DIEZ BALL: But standing between the most feared attack on Earth and a nation's wildest dreams, there is one man - a goalkeeper they call Vozinha.
VENKAT: (Laughter) Like, "The Winner Takes It All" in the back - extremely dramatic - but it's not just that he's a skilled goalie, which he obviously is. People have fallen in love with his personal story. He's 40, which is old for a soccer player, and he actually considered retiring recently. But he stuck with it because it's always been his dream to play at the World Cup. That's what he told Roger Bennett of the Men In Blazers network after the game this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSIMAR JOSE EVORA DIAS: I always dreamed that one day Cape Verde should achieve the World Cup. For a small country, the possibility is very, very small. Today, the dream come true for us.
KELLY: So a couple things, Mia - one, we just heard the man himself say Cape Verde, the English pronunciation.
VENKAT: Right. Yes.
KELLY: You and I are going with Portuguese, which is what...
VENKAT: That's right.
KELLY: ...People there would say, Cabo Verde - same country. How small is it? Like, how much of an underdog story are we talking?
VENKAT: Yeah, it is a nation of just around 500,000 people.
KELLY: Wow.
VENKAT: It's one of the smallest countries to ever qualify for the World Cup. But interesting fact, it has a sizable presence in Massachusetts, which is home to the biggest Cabo Verdean community in the U.S., around 70,000 people according to 2020 census data. And a lot of fans there were just losing their minds obviously 'cause to them, a 0-0 tie is a win. Reporter Esteban Bustillos with GBH in Boston went out and spoke with some of these fans who never lost hope, like Cibel Lutaaya.
CIBEL LUTAAYA: I knew that we were going to go far, especially with the goalie, Vozinha. I'm actually from his island. He is amazing.
VENKAT: And Vozinha has a few new fans too. Before the game, he had around 50,000 followers on Instagram.
KELLY: OK.
VENKAT: And when I checked right before this interview, he has over 14 million. And for comparison for our listeners, Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and three-time Super Bowl champion, has around 6 1/2 million.
KELLY: So what's next? When's their next match?
VENKAT: So, you know, right after the match, he was crying. And he said that was in part because his mom couldn't be at the game 'cause she couldn't afford to get a visa. Cabo Verde is on the State Department's list of countries whose travelers must post up to a $15,000 bond in order to get a U.S. visa. And after the game, people heard this and rallied around this effort to bring his mom here, including House Democratic leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who posted on X asking the State Department to help bring Vozinha's mom here. Long story short, she got the visa, fees were waived, and hopefully we'll be seeing her in the crowd on Sunday when Cabo Verde plays Uruguay.
KELLY: Love a good mom story with a happy ending. Thank you, Mia.
VENKAT: Thank you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: NPR's Mia Venkat with our main character of the week.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
