‘I preferred my old life’: World Cup hero Vozinha struggles with fame

Vozinha kept clean sheets against eventual champions Spain and Saudi Arabia with his exceptional goalkeeping to help Cape Verde reach the World Cup round of 32 this year, but the 40-year-old feels powerless to cope with the intense attention that fame has brought his way.

Cape Verde, a collection of islands near Africa's west coast with a population of some 500,000, surprisingly reached the knockout stage in their first appearance at the global tournament before losing 3-2 to Argentina.

Vozinha, whose performances earned him a Yashin Trophy nomination for the year's best goalkeeper, has become a global star, with his Instagram follower count ballooning from 56,000 to 28 million people.

“I’ve lost my peace and tranquillity. I no longer have any privacy," Vozinha told Britain's Observer newspaper.

"I go to a restaurant, and there’s always someone who wants to take a photo with me or asks me for an autograph. Or worse, someone's filming me... I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it."

His family members have also been affected, with fans showing up daily at his mother's house in Cape Verde.

“I’m not there, so I can’t help them,” said Vozinha, who left Portuguese second-tier club Chaves to join Chile's Colo-Colo in July.

“A lot of people want to be famous... but they only see the positive side of that reality. To be honest, if I were offered the life I have today or the life I had before, I’d choose the one I had before.”