Soon after the iconic performance against Argentina, Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper is trending with pictures of collaboration with Nike and Off White. On social media pictures of him posing with Nike boots and an Off-White t-shirt has been a talking point among football fans.
Josimar José Évora Dias, simply known as Vozinha, has been the focal point of football media ever since the 2026 World Cup began. The 40-year-old has been outstanding for Cape Verde with 18 saves across the tournament which helped his team reach the knockout stages in their debut tournament.
Fans are really amused by how Nike and Off-White collaborated with Vozinha despite the fact that he’s been busy the World Cup training schedule and matches.
This viral collaboration is a fictional design concept created by digital artist Asher Hyde and is not a real commercial release. During his team’s historic run, the concept beautifully merged high-fashion streetwear with sport. It quickly fooled millions on X, TikTok and Instagram into believing it was an official retail launch.
To honor Vozinha, who became the oldest player in tournament history to make a tournament debut, artist Asher Hyde launched a mock Nike marketing campaign by recognizing this explosive cultural moment. He designed a conceptual football boot called the “Vozinha Yellow.” The boot utilized a modified Nike Mercurial framework inspired by Virgil Abloh’s 2018 design philosophy and featured a striking neon yellow palette to represent Cape Verde’s national colors and the goalkeeper’s jersey. The virtual shoe incorporated iconic Off-White elements too. Hyde added realism by releasing two stylized digital photoshoots. This fooled the fans making them believe that it was a real collaboration.
The other reason why the internet easily believed the mockup was that Nike and Off-White had released this kind of collab in past World Cup tournaments. During the 2018 World Cup, fashion designer Virgil Abloh partnered with Nike Football to launch a massive streetwear capsule collection. That real-world collection introduced the Nike Zoom Fly Mercurial Flyknit sneaker alongside co-branded jerseys and track jackets.
The driving factor for Hyde to do the mock Nike marketing was indeed his amazing performance in the World Cup matches. From the very first match against Spain, Vozinha’s top-level saves attracted by many football fans, and his Instagram account eventually gained millions of followers.
Even though that underdog run came to an end when they matched up against the current World Champions, Argentina, in the Round of 32. But to everyone’s surprise, while many fans knew they would lose to Argentina, the performance of Cape Verde was unexpected. Even after trailing to a brilliant goal by Argentina’s Messi, they came back with brilliant performance and leveled the score at 1-1 by the goal of Deroy Duarte at 59th minute, holding on untill the fulltime thanks to the brillant saves made by Vozinha. Then the extra time began, as Argentina again took the lead early by the goal Lisandro Martinez at 92nd minute. But after 11 minutes, Cape Verde defender Sidny L Cabral chose to decide score screamer out of nowhere which made the scoreboard same.
But before they could hold on to force a penalty shootout, a brilliant corner kick from Messi found Argentine defender Romero whose header was deflected by Cape Verde defender Diney Borges and eventually the ball reached the net past Vozinha. That own-goal became the difference between the teams as Argentina qualified for the Round of 16, where they will face Egypt.
But even after the loss, Cape Verde and Vozinha gained massive respect from the football world as they will be remembered as one of the greatest underdogs ever in World Cup history.
