A bitesize recap of the #BestWorldCup ever

george.terry

World cup

At the time of the 2010 World Cup Twitter was still on the rise and Vine, Instagram and Snapchat were but twinkles in their founders’ eyes, so it’s hardly surprising that the 2014 World Cup has eclipsed its predecessors in terms of social activity.

But the online response has still been phenomenal, undoubtedly making it the social event of the year.

Now that the group stages have finished, we thought we’d cast an eye back over the most social World Cup yet and pull out a few interesting tidbits.

1 – Over 110,000 people agree that 2014 is ‘The Best World Cup’ ever

2 – Social support has come from all over the globe.
The most passionate and committed supporters of their teams are to be found in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Colombia. Not what you’d expect, huh?

ghana

Rather more predictably Portgual lead in terms of sheer volume, with over 17.5 million tweets of their hashflag – admittedly, most of these were probably about Ronaldo and his silly hair.

3 – Messi is still the big dog.
It was always going to come down Messi v Ronaldo in Brazil and it’s Lionel who comes out on top, notching up over 10 million mentions since the tournament kicked off.

Cheer up Cristiano, could be worse. At least you’re still in the tournament. Oh…

4 – Even football players are into selfies.
It’s easy to forget that despite their mind-bending salaries, glamorous lifestyles and incredible talent, football players are only human. Like the rest of usthey love a good selfie. Here are some of our top picks .

German midfielder André Schürrle:

Brazilian midfielder Oscar dos Santos:

Spanish striker David Villa:

5 – Celebs are getting in on the action.

Hulk Hogan watches football?! WTF.

The ‘shlebs’ have been all over the World Cup. In fact, at this moment in time, Rihanna is the most engaged commentator online. Maybe she can give Phil Neville a few pointers…

6 – It’s all about Brazuca.
We can’t talk about celebrities at the World Cup without mentioning our favourite World Cup superstar – Brazuca. Here are some of his / her / its finest moments. And, while you’re at it, take a moment to marvel at the fact that an inanimate object currently has over two million more followers than you probably do, picking almost all of these up in just two weeks.

7 – Welcome to the World Cup of the future!
Vanishing spray, goal-line technology – whatever next? Jet-powered corner flags, robot linesmen? Wondrous times we live in, to be sure.

The new tech has certainly piqued our imaginations, with over 240K talking about the goal-line technology and a further 35K talking about the vanishing spray.

So there you have it, your World Cup social wrap-up.

True to form, England hopped on the plane home the first chance they got, followed swiftly by Italy and Spain, leaving us with a curious situation: a World Cup in which not one of the remaining players has ever lifted the trophy.

I would end this in the most non-partisan way possible, something along the lines of “only one thing’s for sure, it’s all to play for…” But, seeing as I have Argentina in the company sweepstakes… VAMOS LA ALBICELESTE!