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6 things we learned from Facebook’s World Cup fan map
Cristiano Ronaldo is more popular in America than Portugal — if you trust Facebook.
A player’s popularity is best represented by his Facebook likes (shhh, just go with us on this one) so when Facebook put a map showing some of the world’s biggest players’ popularity by country, we learned a lot. For example:
- Cristiano Ronaldo is more popular in the U.S. than he is in Portugal. He's also really big in Latvia.
- El Salvador is really into Iker Casillas and so is Guatemala. It’s a Central America thing, obviously.
- Africa loves Karim Benzema. He is of Algerian decent so his popularity there makes sense, but it’s nearly the entire continent, all the way down to Chad. Chad loves Karim.
- Gerard Pique isn't that much more popular in Colombia than he is elsewhere. HE HAS NO SHAKIRA JUICE.
- Wayne Rooney’s popularity makes no sense.
You know who really likes Rooney? Myanmar. And Namibia. And Bhutan. And Kenya, Papua New Guinea and Uganda. Basically, Rooney is the king of “don’t get a ton of football here, but I love Manchester United and Rooney.” It’s a winning combination for him that forces the Red Devils to pay him way more money than he deserves so keep it going, Wayne.
But more than anything we learned that everyone loves Ronaldo. Everyone. And that’s even with his shirt on.
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