Social Media FIFA World Cup Squad

As the greatest festival on Earth, the FIFA World Cup, ends, we bring to you detailed Social Media analytics related to the tournament.

Having seen unprecedented activity by Social Media users in the month-long competition, The FIFA World Cup 2014 can aptly be called the Social Media World Cup. Several records were broken, both on and off the field. Germany’s winning moment of the final saw an estimated 618,725 tweets generated per minute, making it the most tweeted moment in history! The semifinal between Brazil and Germany on 8 June became the most tweeted about single sports event, with 35.6 million tweets being generated during the match. Facebook reports that 88 million people generated 280 million interactions for Sunday’s final between Germany and Argentina, which makes the match the single most-talked-about sporting event in Facebook history

Today’s infographic shows a World Cup XI squad based on number of mentions on Twitter.

The pre-tournament hype surround Brazilian sensation Neymar continued throughout the competition, and saw him claim the top spot with 21.1 million mentions. Neymar, one of the favorites to win the Golden Ball and the Golden Boot, was ruled out of the tournament mid-way following a vertebral injury in Brazil’s quarterfinal against Colombia.

Lionel Messi finished a close second with 20.7 million mentions. Messi was also the player to have received the most number of mentions in a single day, having received a staggering 5.5 million mentions on the day of the World Cup final. Conversations about Messi saw a huge spike following him being awarded the Golden Ball for this edition of the World Cup. However, not all of these mentions were congratulatory in nature. A significant portion of these final day mentions actually questioned the decision to award Messi the Golden Ball.

Not all publicity is bad publicity – this quote held good for Luis Suarez, whose on-field antics saw him bite a large chunk of mentions. He finished third with about 15 million mentions. This was also true for David Luiz and Marcelo, who faced a lot of negative sentiment following Brazil’s defensive debacle against Germany in the semifinal stage. Marcelo’s own-goal, which was also the first goal of the World Cup, helped him garner a significant number of mentions too.

Giorgio Chiellini, who was at the receiving end of Suarez’s bite, also made it to the Social Media XI. This ought to come as a great relief for Chiellini, since Suarez isn’t known to bite his own teammates (yet).

Colombia’s golden boy James Rodriguez finished as top-scorer and a member of the Social Media XI with 6 goals and nearly 7 million mentions to his name. Arjen Robben earned plaudits for carrying the Dutch to the semis, but also some flak and accusations of diving.

Mats Hummels was surprisingly the only representative of the World Cup winners in the Social Media XI. Thomas Mueller and Miroslav Klose received more mentions than Hummels, but could not make it into the squad owing to severe competition in the mid and forward areas.

Guillermo Ochoa’s stellar form saw him land the role of the keeper, despite the Mexican team’s run ending in the round of 16.

Superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was notable for his absence beyond the group stages. A large portion of Ronaldo’s mentions came from the American twitterati, who expressed their gratitude for his 80th minute strike that sank Ghana on the final day of Group G matches and helped the USMNT to the knockout stages.

Louis van Gaal reigned supreme among the coaches. His gamble to bring on keeper Tim Krul for the penalty shootout against Costa Rica paid rich dividends, both on the field and on Twitter.

And that rounds up the Social Media World Cup squad. Check back soon for more interesting stats and analyses about the World Cup!