The capture of 20-year-old Pratama Arhan has opened up a whole new market for the J2 League team

He might have only made a handful of professional appearances, but Indonesia’s football fans are already all in on 20-year-old left back Pratama Arhan, and Tokyo Verdy are reaping the benefit.

Since the PSIS Semarang youngster was unveiled on Verdy’s instagram a scant 11 hours ago, the Japanese team have seen over 320,000 likes on the post, and their follower count has skyrocketed from around 35,000 to 186,000, a figure which is growing by the hour.

Whether Arhan – who already has 16 international caps – can do anything about Verdy’s perennial underachievement in the Japanese second tier remains to be seen, but the coming increase in merchandising revenue and TV rights in Indonesia (population 270,000,000) won’t hurt.

Verdy already have shirts with Arhan’s name and number (38) on sale on the club website, with NBC News Indonesia giving fans the lowdown on how to get hold of them.