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Unknown New Zealand Defender Gains 2.6 Million IG Followers Before World Cup

2026 FIFA World Cup, Football YouTubers, New Zealand National Football Team, Tim Payne

The World Cup is built for superstars. Every four years, the biggest football tournament on earth turns familiar names into global icons and gives unknown players the chance to become national heroes overnight.

In 2026, with New Zealand preparing for only its third men’s World Cup appearance, one of the tournament’s most unlikely stories has already arrived before a ball has even been kicked.

His name is Tim Payne, a 32-year-old New Zealand international defender for Wellington Phoenix and the All Whites.

Born in Auckland, Payne came through Auckland City and Waitakere United before signing for Blackburn Rovers as a teenager.

However, work-permit issues prevented him from making a senior appearance there, and he later played for Auckland City, Portland Timbers 2 and Eastern Suburbs before joining Wellington Phoenix in 2019.

He has also represented New Zealand at youth level, played at the 2012 Olympics, and has reached 50 senior caps for his country.

The strange part is that Payne did not go viral because of a wonder goal, a dramatic interview, or a controversial tackle.

It started with Argentine football creator Valen Scarsini, known online as ‘El Scarso’, who has built his following around funny, obsessive and highly shareable football ideas.

His content is not just match reaction or standard analysis, he creates internet “missions” that football fans can join in on.

In early 2025, he helped turn FC Balzers, a fifth-division club from Liechtenstein playing in Switzerland, into a social media sensation.

TyC Sports reported that Balzers went from fewer than 1,000 Instagram followers to more than 270,000 after Scarsini encouraged fans to adopt the club with the hashtag #TodosSomosDelBalzers.

Scarsini has a serious platform behind him, with his Instagram page, @elscarso, having around 569,000 followers, while his bio also points to a TikTok account with 680,000-plus followers and a YouTube channel under the Scarso name with 340,000-plus subscribers.

Similarly to his FC Balzers ‘mission’, he took the World Cup as an opportunity to start another one.

He asked a simple question: “Who is the least-known player in the World Cup?” wondering whether the internet could unite behind him.

Scarsini searched through the World Cup squads looking for the least-known player at the tournament, through social media following.

In Group G, he found New Zealand defender Tim Payne, who had fewer than 5,000 Instagram followers.

Valen Scarsini inviting his fans to follow Tim Payne

Scarsini told his audience to follow Payne, like and comment on his posts, mention him everywhere, and “feed the legend” before the World Cup began.

Payne’s Instagram following exploded from 4,715 followers to over one million followers in just 2 days, growing at nearly 1,000 followers per minute at one stage.

Tim Payne showed appreciation and also posted a thank-you message to Valen and the supporters.

The New Zealand International team also conducted an interview with Tim, asking his views on the last few days and how he is feeling.

Tim mentioned that he found out when he saw a few notifications coming on his phone, and he saw that he had been tagged in a post on Instagram.

He could not understand the post as it was in Spanish and he does not speak the language, so he gave the phone to his wife, who is a fluent Spanish speaker, who then explained to him what was said in the post.

He also said that when he woke up the next morning, he saw that he had already gotten hundreds of thousands of followers.

Now sitting on 2.6 million followers, as someone who was not very big on social media, Tim describes the situation as “crazy” and “hard” as he is trying to embrace it all, and expresses hope that he and the team can make all the followers proud.

Tim Payne is not only a player who gained a lot of followers, but he has also become one of the stars of the upcoming World Cup, gaining attention from everyone on social media.

From Inter Miami Stadium using Tim Payne to market the New Zealand vs Haiti friendly before the World Cup, to football clips captioned “Tim Payne inspired try”, to people calling him the World Cup GOAT, even getting recognition from the official FIFA World Cup account.

Argentine fans have also followed the mission of their Argentine creator, taking it a step further by creating a chant for Payne.

What started as a simple push to follow the “least-known World Cup player” has now turned into full fan treatment.

Supporters have been singing a chant in Spanish, which translates to:

“It won’t be Yamal’s World Cup,
like my grandfather used to say.
Watch out for Tim Payne at the World Cup,
he’s the new Di María.
I back him, I cheer him on,
I’ve followed him since Cemento.
With Tim Payne from the cradle to the coffin.
You’re a star with great height, I applaud you
for every rough tackle,
for crosses into the box and waist-breaking moves.
No Payne, no gain,
No Payne, no gain,
the people’s king, he is the real king.
No Payne, no gain,
No Payne, no gain,
and in every match I will always follow you.”

While the World Cup has always been an opportunity for lesser-known players to break through, make their name and show their talent on the biggest stage, Tim Payne’s story has flipped that script this time, the tournament found one of its unlikely heroes before it had even started.

It has turned into one of the most wholesome stories of the World Cup build-up: a hard-working New Zealand defender, once followed by only a few thousand people, suddenly becoming a global cult figure.

Payne still has to do his talking on the pitch, but before a ball has been kicked, he already has something most players can only dream of, an army of fans around the world waiting to cheer him on.

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