It took just 90 minutes for Cape Verdean goalkeeper Vozinha to go from relative obscurity to a global social media sensation.
The 40-year-old made an incredible seven saves in his team’s shock 0-0 draw against one of the World Cup favourites Spain.
With a population of just 500,000, Cape Verde is one of the smallest nations to qualify for a World Cup.
Before the tournament kicked off, Vozinha had just 50K followers on Instagram.
However, his display quickly went viral after the Brazilian broadcaster, CazéTV, encouraged its viewers to follow the goalkeeper during the game.
He went on to became the oldest goalkeeper in World Cup history to keep a clean sheet on his tournament debut.
Spain had 27 attempts during the match but couldn’t beat the veteran shot-stopper, who had seen his Instagram following reach 1.9m by the end of the game.
“That is crazy,” he told reporters after the game when informed of his growing popularity.
Before long the figure has surged beyond 5 million after he gave a series of humble post-match interviews in which he praised his late grandparents.
He said: “I cried because I grew up with my grandparents. Unfortunately they were not here. They died a few years before. They were everything for me, everything for my life.
“And also because of my mum. She didn’t manage to be here because of the visa. Because of the money you have to pay for the visa, we didn’t manage on time. I would like her to be here.”
Vozinha, who didn’t start playing professional football until he was 25, now has an incredible 9.7m followers.
The veteran goalkeeper is not the only player at the World Cup to see his Instagram following go through the roof.
New Zealand defender Tim Payne’s following has risen from 4,700 to 5.9m after Argentinian social media influencer ‘El Scarso’ described him as the tournament’s least known player in May.