Chris Jones Oct 27, 2026, 01:15 PM ET

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Chris Jones is a feature writer for ESPN The Magazine . He is also a Writer at Large for Esquire .

LONDON -- Somehow, Vozinha made it.

Josimar José Évora Dias, born 40 years ago in little Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente, of the country of Cape Verde , a man whose late-blooming career has included stops in Angola, Moldova, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovakia and now Chile, arrived just in time at the London Palladium on Monday night under white lights and rain clouds to claim his unlikely place among the goalkeepers of the year.

His Yashin Trophy nomination at the Ballon d'Or was not for his club play, split between scattered appearances with Chaves in Liga Portugal 2 and his so-far mostly ceremonial arrival at Chilean titans Colo-Colo.…