Welberlieskott De Halim Jardim, or simply Welber Jardim, began to notice something strange going on with his social networks. His number of followers began to rise, kept going up, and did not stop snowballing. Even though he played for giants Sao Paulo, his exposure in Brazil was miniscule. At the end of the day, he was playing for the under-16s.

The explanation behind the phenomenon lies a long way away from the Sao Paulo academy. His inbox and his posts were inundated with messages and requests from Indonesian fans.

“It went from zero to this. It was an explosion [today he has 70,400 Instagram followers]. And that’s when people started saying they needed me to play the World Cup,” the 16-year-old told FIFA. “First of all I thought it was just talk. ‘If they want me, let’s see if anything happens,’ I thought.”