Around 600 Colo Colo supporters, some with children in tow on a winter Sunday night, packed the international arrivals hall at Santiago's Arturo Merino Benítez Airport to greet a 40-year-old goalkeeper from an island nation of half a million people most of them had never heard of two months earlier.
Vozinha, the Cape Verde shot-stopper whose real name is Josimar José Évora Dias, touched down close to 20:30 local time between Sunday and Monday, stepping off an Airbus A350 into a wall of chants of "¡Vozinha es de Chile!", white flags and, in an unusual touch, the blue-and-white colours of Cape Verde waved by fans who had adopted him as their own before he had even signed.
He emerged roughly half an hour later alongside sports manager Daniel Morón into what one Chilean outlet described as a cauldron of noise, and thanked the crowd in Spanish for their patience through a signing process delayed by several days of migration paperwork and personal matters.
The scenes capped an extraordinary rise. Two months ago Vozinha was a veteran net-minder plying his trade for Chaves in Portugal's second tier, largely unknown outside the small football world of Cape Verde, which was appearing at its first ever World Cup.
He became the story of the tournament almost by accident, keeping a scoreless draw against Spain — the side that would go on to lift the trophy — with seven saves in that match alone and 18 across Cape Verde's run to the last 32, making him the oldest goalkeeper on record to keep a clean sheet on his World Cup debut.
FIFA later named him to its official Team of the Tournament, a squad that also featured Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland and Michael Olise — remarkable company for a player who had spent his career bouncing between clubs in Cape Verde, Angola, Moldova, Portugal, Cyprus and Slovakia.
The football briefly became a secondary story. His Instagram following exploded from around 50,000 before the tournament to close to 30 million, a rate of growth that turned him into one of the most talked-about athletes on the planet during the World Cup's closing weeks.
Colo Colo moved to capitalise, with club president Aníbal Mosa confirming an agreement for the free agent before his travel to Chile for a medical and formal unveiling. Chile's most decorated club — 34-time domestic champions — currently top the Primera División table with 39 points from 13 wins and three defeats, 13 clear of second-placed Universidad Católica.
For a club already running away with the league, the addition of the World Cup's most viral goalkeeper is as much a marketing coup as a football one — though after his display against Spain, few in Chile are treating it as a gimmick.
