Tim Payne went from a little-known New Zealand defender to a half-million-follower social media name in less than a day after an Argentine influencer’s video set off a viral push around the All Whites player.

A day before the surge, Payne had about 4,700 followers. After the clip spread, he was sitting on half a million, and one photo that had 276 likes jumped to 250,000. The post also drew nearly 4 million views on Instagram and more than 2 million on TikTok, turning a player many football fans outside New Zealand had never heard of into a subject of global online chatter.

The man behind the campaign was Valen Scarsini, who posts as El Scarso. He said he wanted to make the least-known footballer at the World Cup famous, and he settled on Payne after looking through the teams one by one. In the video, Scarsini said Payne was in Group G with New Zealand, that he did not reach 5,000 followers, and that he had a difficult task helping New Zealand win its first World Cup match. New Zealand has never won one.

Scarsini’s pitch was built for social media: follow Payne, tag him, flood his posts with likes and comments, and keep making videos about him until his name spread. It worked fast. Spanish-speaking personalities including comedian Javier Ibarreche, who has 12.6 million followers on TikTok, and sports journalist Iker Ruiz del Barco, who has nearly 14 million followers across his social accounts, added to the momentum and helped drive Payne’s sudden rise beyond the original post.

That is the part of the story that matters today. The viral lift was not a random burst of attention but a coordinated Spanish-language campaign around Payne’s place in New Zealand’s World Cup squad, with a defender at the center of a joke that became a mass audience event. For Payne, the campaign turned a routine profile into an international one almost overnight.

Payne responded after the post was already blowing up, telling Scarsini on Instagram that he had been wondering why his socials were surging and found the post, then adding his thanks in Spanish: “Appreciate the love! Gracias, hermano.” Scarsini later posted a follow-up video showing the message. The exchange closed the loop on a viral push that began as a stunt and ended with the player himself in on the joke.

What happens next is simple enough: Payne now enters New Zealand’s World Cup campaign with a much bigger audience watching him than the one he had before the video spread. Whether the new attention lasts beyond the trend is another matter, but the viral campaign has already done what Scarsini set out to do. Tim Payne is no longer the least-known name in the story.