The 20-year-old former Orlando Pirates centre-back joined the Major League Soccer team for a reported $3 million after starring for both club and country last year.

To say Mbokazi's rise has been rapid is something of an understatement, with the player sealing his international move, less than a year after making his first senior appearance for the Buccaneers.

Mbokazi quickly became a first-team regular and even captained the side before putting in some assured performances for Bafana at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

In the first 48 hours after the Mbokazi deal was announced, Chicago Fire saw an increase of 180,000 followers across its social media accounts, a bigger initial impact than when Lionel Messi joined David Beckham's Inter Miami.

The club's official Facebook page grew from 320,000 followers to 539,000 in just one week after the announcement.

More than 572,000 accounts from South Africa now follow the team and make up a quarter of their entire social media audience.

Fire head coach Gregg Berhalter admitted he was initially surprised by the popularity of the player, but saw it first hand after the player's debut against the Houston Dynamo where despite losing the game, Mbokazi made headlines for his performance as a clip of his goal-line clearance went viral with millions of views.

The coach said in the New York times: "When we were evaluating the player, and you hear about the player's background, how excited people in South Africa are about him, talking about the generational talent, you start to get an understanding of it (his talent).

"But to fully understand the impact and the popularity was difficult. To see that in just a flurry of engagement on the internet was somewhat surprising," he said.

Mbekezeli Mbokazi's Major League Soccer move sparks massive social media boost for Chicago Fire