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David Luiz and Luiz Gustavo react after being thrashed by Germany 7-1 at the World Cup. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images
It says something about human nature that the most tweeted about event in sport this year was Brazil’s 7-1 trouncing against Germany at the World Cup. The hosts fell from their perch the way Homer Simpson falls off a cliff: the pain went on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And the people of the world united to tweet in derision, delight, dismay and disbelief.
The World Cup dominated the attention of sports fans across the globe in 2014, with six of the 10 most mentioned moments coming from those 33 days in the summer. Mario Balotelli offering his romantic services to the Queen, Mario Götze scoring the final goal of the competition and Wayne Rooney’s strike against Uruguay were all popular topics, but the World Cup was a victory for the German concept of schadenfreude.
Biggest moments of 2014 on Twitter
Eight of the UK’s 10 most tweeted about moments of 2014 (so far) were related to sport. Brazil’s defeat to Germany tops the list, followed by Rooney’s equaliser against Uruguay. The World Cup dominates the list – six of the 10 biggest events on Twitter related to the World Cup, with two more from the Champions League.
Highest trending sporting events of the year
With events at the World Cup dominating in 2014, it comes as no surprise that #WorldCup and #WorldCup2014 top the list of sporting event trends on the social media site this year. With fans (and critics) loving to get involved in the conversation, a range of sporting events in 2014 offered the chance for people to offer their views on Twitter. Tennis, horse racing and winter sports also proved popular.
World Cup 2014
There were 672m tweets sent about the World Cup finals in Brazil, with 35.6m of them sent during Germany’s 7-1 win against the hosts in the semi-final, setting a new record for the most-discussed live event in Twitter’s history. The most retweeted message of the tournament came from, well, who else ...
If we beat Costa Rica i want a kiss,obviously on the cheek, from the UK Queen.😂😂😂.
— Mario Balotelli (@FinallyMario) June 19, 2014
The Premier League clubs’ most tweeted about players
Top 10 topics on Facebook in 2014
Again the World Cup dominated. The tournament in Brazil was the most discussed global moment on Facebook and the third most talked about topic in the UK. The Scottish referendum was the most discussed event in the UK on the social media site. According to Facebook data, there were more than 10m interactions on Facebook about the referendum in the five weeks leading up to the vote on 8 September.
What would a social media roundup of 2014 be without a selfie mention?
Twitter are calling 2014 the year of the selfie. Now, argue among yourselves in the comments section about whether this is a fair summary of the past year, but according to the social media site’s stats, the term “selfie” has been mentioned more than 92m times on Twitter. Among the most memorable sport related selfies of last year is the Queen’s photobombing of Australian hockey player Jayde Taylor’s picture taken at the Glasgow National Hockey Centre during the Commonwealth Games in July.
Ahhh The Queen photo-bombed our selfie!! 😄 👑 #royalty #sheevensmiled #amazing #Glasgow2014 @Hockeyroos @AusComGames pic.twitter.com/ZMtHYFUqHk
— Jayde Taylor (@_JaydeTaylor) July 24, 2014
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