Cape Verde’s fairytale sparks an old cliché: forget the dentists, they’re all professional footballers

His first name is Josimar, a tribute to the former defender - not exactly the most famous Brazilian footballer of all time. To everyone, though, he is simply Vozinha, and since yesterday he has become an unlikely cult hero.

The Cape Verde goalkeeper turned 40 just a few days ago and was one of the stars of his nation’s remarkable 0-0 draw against Spain at the World Cup. Overnight, he became a social media sensation after a Brazilian TV network launched a campaign encouraging fans to help him reach one million Instagram followers.

Within hours, he had surged to almost six million followers, with the number still climbing thanks largely to Brazilian supporters. Before kick-off, he had just 50,000.

And no, he is not a dentist.

The World Cup has always been a stage for fairytales. Cape Verde’s story certainly qualifies. Yet these stories often drift into the realm of myth, and the link between a small football nation and a player supposedly working as a dentist remains one of the game's most enduring clichés.

Italy knows the feeling well. In 1966, Pak Doo-ik scored the goal that knocked the Azzurri out of the World Cup. He was immediately labelled “the dentist”, despite never actually working in that profession. Heimir Hallgrímsson, Iceland’s manager at the 2018 World Cup, genuinely was a dentist — but only until he decided to become a full-time coach.

Perhaps Vozinha has some dental training too, but he has never mentioned a career in dentistry in any interview. More importantly, since 2012 he has been travelling the globe as a professional footballer with such frequency that any patients would have had to wait a very long time for treatment.

Born in 1986, Vozinha spent his early years in Cape Verde before moving to Angola at 26 to join Progresso in Luanda. He later played in China, Moldova with Zimbru Chișinău, Portugal with Gil Vicente, Cyprus with AEL Limassol and elsewhere.

Since 2024 he has been back in Portugal with GD Chaves, currently competing in the Portuguese second tier. Can you imagine the goalkeeper of a Championship club spending his spare time running a dental practice? Exactly.

Like Vozinha, every member of Cape Verde’s squad is a professional footballer. None of them currently play in their homeland. The only player featuring in one of Europe’s traditional top-five leagues is Logan Costa, who plays for Villarreal CF in Spain.

Others are spread across Europe and beyond. Dailon Livramento, for instance, is a player familiar to Italian fans through his connection with Hellas Verona, while the rest of the squad earn their living in leagues across Portugal, Turkey, Cyprus, the United States, Russia, Israel, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania and the United Arab Emirates.

Not all of them compete at the highest level, of course, but very few would have the time to maintain another profession alongside football.

Cape Verde are a fairytale story.

They do not need to be turned into an urban legend.