The voiceSofronio Vasquez won the Season 26 finale on Tuesday night, marking the first win for rookie coach Michael Bublé. He’s shocked, not only because he just won the NBC singing competition, but also because he beat his Bublé teammate Shye in the process. They were the last two standing.

“When it came down to Shye and I, and Shye is a great singer — she’s really great in her music, in her artistry,” Vasquez tells EW, “I really thought Shye would win.”

Both participants were powerhouses, and Vasquez in particular sang songs from a variety of genres, from Roy Orbison’s “Crying” to “A Million Dreams.” The greatest showman Movie (below).

Vasquez ultimately triumphed, but the 32-year-old nicknamed “The Filipino Phenom” plans to stay close to Shye, a teenager from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who sang folk songs by Harry Styles and Joan Osborne.

“Me and Shye are just family here,” says Vasquez, who is from Mindanao, Philippines and now lives in Utica, New York. We started with a team game from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. Yes, after this press conference, I will sit down with her later in the day, spend the night with her and her family because they are the only family I have here.

Vasquez mentioned on the NBC series that he was inspired by his father’s recent loss in the competition. Still, at least at first, he wasn’t sure he would get away with the “W.” It took a while for the top five contestants to be announced.

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“I think the moment I felt like I could do it is the first live shows, results day,” Vasquez says. “In the first week of live shows from Top 8 to Top 5, I was the first one called to the finals. So I know the (finalist) ranking is random, but that’s a way of saying I’m in the final, so I have about a one in five chance of winning The voice.”

Then, when Vasquez was declared the winner, he fell to his knees.

“Wow. The initial reaction was definitely shock,” he recalls to EW. “I can clearly remember what I felt the moment Carson Daly called my name. It’s just a look back at all the dreams I’ve had in the past. And the first thing I did was hug my brother in the audience, what.” Michael Bublé helped me with that… and then went to the biggest party ever in America for the first time, and that was the closing party for the show , and it was a great experience.”

Just because the competition is over, Vasquez isn’t saying goodbye to Shye or his Grammy-winning trainer, with whom he has developed a real bond.

“You know what? It’s so surprising that people always say, ‘You look so good together. You’re like family,'” Vasquez says. “But I’m always intimidated by Bublé, and I always called him sir, and he was like, ‘No, don’t call me sir. I’m Michael. I’m just like you.’”

Vasquez notes that his culture uses the term simply as a sign of respect. Whatever he calls his coach, Vasquez describes working with him as “a dream.”