New Zealand footballer Tim Payne (32), who will play for his national team at the World Cup, has become an internet sensation like a bolt from the blue. A few days ago, he had only a few thousand followers on his Instagram, but since then, his number of fans has grown to more than five and a half million, . The real reason for his unexpected fame will amaze you.
- Football player Tim Payne originally had around 5,000 followers on Instagram.
- After the sudden interest, his number of fans rose rapidly.
- Behind the growth of its popularity was the video of the influencer Valen Scarsini.
- Scarsini called him the least known player of the World Cup.
- In a personal meeting, Payne thanked the influencer for his support.
Payne, who is a defender for the New Zealand team Wellington Phoenix, has not taken much interest in his social media. Since he added new posts only once every few months, they did not attract much attention. The truth is that he was followed only by a very narrow community of fans, which was barely 5,000.
But one day something unexpected happened. Out of nowhere, his phone went crazy with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram. People have been writing him positive comments and tagging him in videos telling him they have their fingers crossed for him. Suddenly, even posts that were several years old had more than 100,000 likes.
After a while of searching, he learned the real reason. He came across a video of influencer Valen Scarsini, who dedicated an entire post to him. The Argentine, who has more than 1.2 million followers, claimed to have watched all the teams that will be playing at this year’s World Cup. Later, he chose one player who, according to him, was “the least known”.
In the end, it was a man from New Zealand who became it. “Tim Payne is a defender who has a very difficult task ahead of him: helping New Zealand win their first ever World Cup match. They haven’t won any of them so far,” Scarsini revealed in the video. He invited his fans to follow him, make videos about him, comment and like his posts.
The video became a huge trend that went beyond the influencer’s fan base. Thanks to this, the number of followers of the footballer skyrocketed to more than 5.5 million, surpassing even the total population of his native country.
After an unexpected surprise, the defender contacted the influencer and thanked him for his support in Spanish. “Excuse my Spanish, I’m still learning it on Duolingo. The last 48 hours have been pretty crazy. I am grateful to be able to represent my country and I appreciate the support of fans from all over the world“, he noted.
Scarsini met the footballer and personally congratulated him on the increase in fans. “I’m still breathing it in, I don’t know what to think about it. It’s all new to me. Thank you for everything,” he told him during the interview.
