Newfound Instagram Fame A Challenge For All Whites Defender Tim Payne

All Whites defender Tim Payne clearly likes slipping under the radar.

He's never been one for the limelight, choosing to keep his head down, and do the mahi, for whatever team he's part of in his career. He was hoping for the same this week as he joined the All Whites for a camp in Florida, ahead of the the biggest tournament of them all, the FIFA World Cup.

But instead of being just another player, Payne's unlikely newly-found social media status, has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons.

Just three days ago, Payne had 4700 followers on Instagram from just 58 posts. Now he has 2.2 million followers, following an Argentinian influencer's call to make him a "World Cup hero", after he'd identified Payne as the least followed footballer going to the tournament in the USA and Mexico.

Speaking from Florida, Payne's admitted comprehending everything has been a challenge.

"I think it was two or three days ago, one afternoon. Just started getting a few random notifications, and then I looked on my Instagram and noticed that someone had tagged me in a video," Payne said.

"And it was in Spanish, and my Spanish isn't very great, so I passed it on to my missus, who's fluent in Spanish, and she was able to let me know what it was saying.

"And then I think by the time I woke it up the next morning, there was hundreds of thousands of follows. So yeah, it's pretty crazy," he said.

While some may find embracing such new found fame easy, Payne's hinted he's not one of those, confessing he's not massive on social media. But he says he's trying his best to deal with it.

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"For (this) to happen is a bit strange for me .... I'm trying to embrace it all," he said.

"I'm trying to process it all ... have a bit of a laugh and a bit of banter with it. I think it's come from a cool place in terms of how positive it's been," he said.

The other challenge for Payne, is somehow pushing all of this aside, to try to remain focused on his primary role, and that is to do all he can, to ensure the New Zealand team will be at its best for the World Cup,

"Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting thing to think about ... the fact that, probably this time last week, I was coming into camp just trying to prepare for a World Cup.

"Now I've got millions of people from multiple countries following my Instagram and following my journey and New Zealand football's journey as a whole.

"I hope that we, as a team, and a nation, can make all those people proud," he said.

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