Reuters\/ABC<\/p>\n
New Zealand defender Tim Payne, who became a viral sensation shortly before representing his country at the World Cup, has signed a one-year deal with Paraguayan club Olimpia, a club source told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Payne will join the historic South American side after New Zealand’s campaign at the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada, Sky Sports first reported.<\/p>\n
Olimpia fuelled speculation on Monday when it posted a message on Instagram featuring a New Zealand flag and a flexed-biceps emoji minutes before New Zealand’s Group G opener against Iran, which ended in a 2-2 draw.<\/p>\n
The source confirmed the agreement was in place but did not provide further details.<\/p>\n
The Wellington Phoenix defender shot to global prominence after an Argentine influencer launched a social media campaign describing him as the least-known player at the World Cup and encouraging fans to follow him online.<\/p>\n
Payne’s Instagram following grew from fewer than 5,000 before the campaign to around 5.8 million, turning the 32-year-old into one of the tournament’s most unlikely viral stars.<\/p>\n
As good a story\u00a0as it is for Payne, one must feel sorry for many of the other lesser-known players at the World Cup, including his teammate Tommy Smith.<\/p>\n
While Payne has the honour of playing in the top tier A-League, Smith’s Braintree Town were just relegated to the National League South, England’s sixth tier.<\/p>\n
Olimpia, Paraguay’s only three-time Copa Libertadores champions, qualified for the last 16 of the Copa Sudamericana as winners of Group G and also secured a place in next year’s Libertadores after winning the domestic Apertura title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reuters\/ABC New Zealand defender Tim Payne, who became a viral sensation shortly before representing his country at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[167841,12910,64,63,3159,2592,1076,21420,4125,21839,129796,13198,588,85,4126,21418],"class_list":["post-741340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-algeria","tag-argentina","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-austria","tag-france","tag-iraq","tag-jordan","tag-live","tag-norway","tag-senegal","tag-soccer","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-updates","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}