Despite being a soccer-obsessed nation with a huge population, people rarely take notice of Indonesia’s problem-plagued, underperforming football league outside of the archipelago nation. But a seemingly superhuman solo goal by 21-year-old Terens Puhiri of Borneo FC Samarinda at a game earlier this week definitely has football fans all over the world taking notice, dropping their jaws and wondering, is he the fastest player or possibly even the fastest man, on Earth?
https://twitter.com/FOXSportsAsia/status/923391486955159552
https://twitter.com/sportbible/status/923224796330102784
VIDEO: Some Indonesian guy named Terens Puhiri is apparently the fastest man alive https://t.co/E5Fh7UxcID pic.twitter.com/674BIGbKFm
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) October 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/FootyMemes/status/923189007722471424
The insane show of superhuman agility happened during Borneo FC’s 4-0 win against Tenggarong’s Mitra Kukar Football Club on Monday. Going after a deflected shot, Terens ran from deep inside his own half and hit his own internal turbo button to rocket across the pitch, poke the ball past a befuddled defender at the halfway mark and put it away coolly after a one-on-one with the keeper.
His name is Terens Puhiri and he's the fastest man alive ⚡ #JayalahPesutEtam #GojekTravelokaLiga1 pic.twitter.com/GlzDDKNIxs
— Borneo FC Samarinda (@BorneoSMR) October 25, 2017
The clip of Teren’s goal rocketed across the internet almost (but not quite) as fast as he did across the field, with sports writers and football fans the world over shocked by the show of skill by the previously little-known player from Indonesia.
“It’s like Lionel Messi and Usain Bolt combined, jacked up on Mountain Dew.” wrote Roger Gonzalez for CBS Sports. “It’s quite stunning to see a soccer player have that type of speed and control. If he keeps doing more of this, we may just seem him at a bigger league. He’s just 21, and from the looks of it, has some serious potential.
“The guy is something else and would probably have a 99 speed rating in FIFA,” he added.
Also referencing the uber-popular football video game, soccer news site Four Two Two wrote, “Before FIFA 18 fans start desperately booting up their consoles, Puhiri sadly isn’t featured in-game.”
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Alex Martin of the Daily Mail wrote, “ Owing to a lack of technology in Indonesian football, we may never know exactly how fast Puhiri ran on his way to scoring Borneo’s third goal of the evening, but video evidence suggests he may have beaten the Premier League’s fastest ever player, Leroy Sane,” the Manchester City player who was clocked at a top speed of 35.48 kilometres per hour during a match earlier this year.
“To put that in perspective, at that sustained speed Sane would finish a 100 metre sprint in a smidgen over 10 seconds, a time only world-class sprinters can achieve.”
Teren’s may have been little-known outside of Indonesia just a few days ago, but it seems likely that the world, and especially international football club scouts, are going to be paying him quite a bit of attention from now on.
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