Whether it was sky-high ticket pricing, FIFA pulling a Trump card, Norway rowing into the quarter-finals, or Infantino dressed like a Run DMC groupie on the final day, the World Cup created lots of talking points. But controversies and political interference aside, football has always had its clichés, and none more so, it seems, than the fans of the beautiful game.
Opera Mini’s football audience is largely African, Opera for Android’s largely Brazilian, and when we tracked how millions of them followed the tournament across both browsers, six stats stood out that behave exactly like football’s favorite clichés.
1. Business End of the Tournament
“It’s a mouthwatering fixture on paper, John.”
While you’d expect the final and semi-finals to dominate the most-followed list, that’s almost exactly how it played out. Spain vs. Argentina, unsurprisingly, topped the list. England vs. Argentina and France vs. Spain, both semi-finals, took the next two spots, with France vs. Morocco, a quarter-final, completing four of the top five.
Completing the top 5 was Argentina vs Egypt, which was a last-16 tie rather than a quarter-final but had the added hook of pitting twilight-years icons Lionel Messi and Mohamed Salah against each other. Egypt too were the last African side standing, so plenty of eyes were on whether they could pull off an upset and keep the continent’s run alive.
There was a slight discrepancy between Opera Mini and Opera for Android. Thanks to OFA’s large Brazilian football audience, one last-16 tie took precedence over another, with Brazil vs. Norway replacing Argentina vs. Egypt. Brazil went crashing out, a result that sent waves through the fjords of Norway.
Top 5 most-followed matches
2. Club Before Country
“Form is temporary, club loyalty is permanent.”
Instead of catching full-blown tournament fever, fans proved where their true loyalties lie by overwhelmingly subscribing to their favorite clubs over national teams.
The one exception was England, who made the top 10 alongside the clubs. Given how widely the Premier League is followed among our football audience, that’s presumably a nod more in the direction of the Premier League than the Three Lions themselves.
Looking at overall team followers, club sides completely dominated the rankings on both platforms, though Mini’s largely African and OFA’s largely Brazilian football audiences told slightly different stories.
Top 10 most-followed teams per browser:
*England and Brazil were the only participating national teams to make the top ten across both browsers. If you didn’t know any better, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the Club World Cup.
3. Home Advantage
Where fans live usually dictates who they support, but app demographics revealed two very different psychological profiles.
On Opera for Android, Brazil topped the most-followed-nation league table. On Opera for Android, Brazil topped the most-followed-nation table. Home bias, pure and simple,
The top-followed nations were:
- Brazil
- England
- France
- Argentina
- Portugal
- Spain
Interesting Stat: Tottenham Hotspur had more subscriber followers on OFA than the Spanish national team. Make of that what you will.
4. Big Game Players
“Individual brilliance wins matches.”
Opera Mini tells a different story. With a predominantly African football audience, deeply loyal to the Premier League and La Liga, geography stopped mattering entirely.
National allegiance took a back seat to star quality, courtesy of Messrs. Bellingham, Mbappé, Messi, Ronaldo, Yamal, and Vini Jnr.
The upshot: England topped the table, arguably their first piece of silverware in decades.
- England
- France
- Argentina
- Portugal
- Spain
- Brazil
No African team cracked that global top six, but narrow the focus to African sides alone, and national pride was very much alive with South Africa, Ghana, and DR Congo leading the way.
Interesting Stat: England had 40% more followers than second-place France, proving just how deeply entrenched Premier League fandom is across the continent.
5. Concentrate on the League
“League form is the priority.”
National pride, it turns out, has a strict expiration date. The moment a nation exited the tournament, the numbers told the whole story: out of cup, out of mind.
South Africa found this out the hard way when knocked out by Canada in the round of 32:
- Subscriptions to the South Africa team dropped by 48% the day following their World Cup exit.
- Traffic to the South African live scores section dropped over 30% immediately after.
6. Getting an Earful
“You couldn’t hear yourself think, the atmosphere was electric.”
Users across 222 countries tuned into live audio commentary streams during the tournament, clocking up 3.3 million streams in total, with Nigeria topping the list at 30%.
Countries with the most audio streams:
- Nigeria
- Kenya
- Bangladesh
- South Africa
- Ghana
- India
- Ethiopia
- Tanzania
- Indonesia
- DR Congo
Interesting Stat: The Cook Islands appeared last on the list with one single stream for the group game Belgium vs. New Zealand. Perhaps a result they wished they’d never tuned in for.
So there you have it. While millions of page views threw up plenty of surprises, one thing stayed consistent throughout: fans change, platforms change, but club loyalty and clichés never do.
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Source: Opera.com
