jueves, 25 de abril de 2013

How an Indian IT Consultant Became a Dutch Soccer Star on Twitter

Robin van Persie is one of the world's top soccer players, starring for Manchester United and the Dutch national team. Many fans know him simply as "RVP."

Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad is a man in India who does IT and telecom consulting for a living. He uses the Twitter handle @rvp.

That's van Persie in the above photo. Here's Prasad:

courtesy @rvp

When RVP the player scored a hat trick to help Man U win its record 20th English league title on Monday night, RVP the Twitter account was inundated with thousands of messages from fans who were both overjoyed and angry about the result.

You've probably guessed the problem by now: All those messages went to Prasad, who had just been minding his business over in India. (The soccer star's actual Twitter handle is the much more unwieldy @Persie_Official.)

According to the BBC, Prasad received more than 10,000 Twitter mentions in the day following van Persie's goal bonanza. He's also received numerous emails about his password, indicating that people have tried hacking into his account.

"I'm a fan of Robin van Persie, so I understand people wanting to congratulate him, and most of the messages or mentions are nice," he told the BBC. "But it's a real nuisance for me. I keep having to tell everyone I'm not Robin van Persie and blocking unwanted followers."

While this may be Prasad's biggest case of mistaken online attention, it isn't the first time he's had to deal with it. Check out this public-service tweet he posted last month:

Despite the annoying aspects of unsolicited attention, however, Prasad has a solid sense of humor about his newfound fame. Since Monday, he's been retweeting messages from fans — many of whom have now caught on to the distinction between consultant and player — and posting self-deprecating messages about his own soccer ability:

"Fergie" and "Wenger" refer respectively to Sir Alex Ferguson, Man U's manager, and Arsène Wenger, who manages van Persie's former club, Arsenal.

Here are a couple more excellent @rvp tweets from this week:

He may not be a soccer star, but Prasad's sense of humor has won him plenty of fans in his own right over the past few days. To wit:

So there you have it. Twitter and sports: Bringing the world closer together, one case of mistaken identity at a time.

Image via Michael Steele/Getty Images

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