Social media madness YB and Basel overtaken - Liechtenstein village club's follower numbers explode overnight
FC Balzers, founded in 1932, is enjoying an epochal increase in followers on Instagram. The best thing about it: the club from the 2nd interregional league didn't have to do anything at all to achieve this. How is that possible?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- FC Balzers from the Principality of Liechtenstein plays in the 2nd interregional league, where it competes against Swiss amateur clubs.
- Thanks to an influencer from Argentina, the club from the village of 4,500 souls is currently enjoying an explosion in followers on Instagram.
- FC Balzers has already overtaken YB and Basel.
FC Balzers from the Principality of Liechtenstein plays in the 2nd interregional league, where it competes with Swiss clubs. After the 15 preliminary round matches, the club from the tranquil village of 4,500 souls is in 6th place.
They are 11 points behind league leaders FC Widnau. Top scorer is striker Dario Stöber, who has scored five times, followed by midfielder Marino Cavegn with four goals. Six other players have scored at least once.
In other words, a club like there are thousands of them on this planet. But a few days ago, everything changed at FC Balzers. The club has become an "internet sensation", headlined the newspaper "Liechtensteiner Vaterland" on December 31. And indeed, a quick search is enough to prove it.
On December 24, FC Balzers posted a simple picture on Instagram wishing viewers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. By January 1, the post had already been liked over 96,000 times.
Absolute madness. For comparison: league leaders FC Widnau posted a similar post on December 23. At the same time, it was given 67 hearts.
An influencer from Argentina has a finger in the pie
How is this possible? An Argentinian influencer named Valen Scarsini has called on his huge TikTok and Instagram following to make the "football club with the smallest fan base" big. A video of this went viral on TikTok and was viewed around 4 million times within a day.
And there are now a whole series of videos on Instagram in which Scarsini beats the advertising drum for FC Balzers. And his calls are bearing fruit: the number of FC Balzers followers grew from around 1000 to 275,000 virtually overnight (as of January 1, 5.30 pm).
And even if the curve of new followers is flattening out, there are still more every hour. The new "fans" also spread countless posts under the hashtag #Todossomosdelbalzers ("We are all from Balzers").
Follower leader Basel left behind
In the case of FC Balzers, it all seems pretty funny. But it also shows the power a single post can have on social media. If used incorrectly, it is anything but funny and, in the worst case, can even be extremely dangerous.
However, FC Balzers seem to be enjoying their unexpected new-found fame - and that's absolutely fine, of course. After all, they already have more followers than BSC YB (182,000), who are currently playing in the Champions League.
FC Balzers has also already passed FC Basel (260,000 followers). Now all it would take is for a sheikh to free up a few hundred million for FC Balzers to rise to number 1 in sporting terms in a few years' time.
