Brazilian soccer star Kaka is on the verge of becoming the world’s first athlete to amass10 million followers on Twitter.

The midfielder, who plays for Spain’s Real Madrid club team, was about 30,000 followers short of the milestone as of late Monday afternoon. If Kaka maintains his recent pace, his @KAKA account should hit eight figures within the next day or so. He added more than 35,000 followers in a single day twice during the past week, according to the stats site TwitterCounter.com.

While Kaka rules the Twittersphere of sports, he’s just 17th on the overall list of most-followed tweeters. Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber — the network’s first and second-most popular users — count more than 20 million followers apiece.

Kaka’s Real Madrid teammate Cristiano Ronaldo is the second most-followed athlete on Twitter. He’s 21st overall, and has just under nine million followers. Retired NBA player Shaquille O’Neal is the only other sports figure among the network’s 60 most popular users. O’Neal has 5.5 million followers, good for 55th overall.