The World Cup Was Huge on Twitter [CHART]

Only now that the World Cup has ended can we truly look back and appreciate how massive the event was.

The World Cup created a lot of jaw-dropping numbers and even set a few records on the Internet this go around, from the astounding 3,282 tweets per second sent following Japan’s 3-1 victory over Denmark a few weeks ago, to the absolutely ridiculous 25 million hours of video streamed by Univision and ESPN over the web.

Perhaps the most astonishing feat was that this year’s World Cup set not one, but three separate net usage records according to Akamai. The most mind-blowing of these was the record 20.7 million visitors per minute recorded on Akamai-served news sites (including many of the biggest) on June 24, when Slovakia knocked out Italy at the same time that the longest match in tennis history was going on.

Add in the NBA finals, the US Open (golf), all of the Lebron James hoopla and it was clearly an amazing month for sports, the web and the social media worlds people turn to for information and discussion. Still, it was the World Cup that shined above all.

Below, find our final top Twitter trends lists for the 2010 World Cup, which was graciously compiled by Liz Pullen of What The Trend.

Most-Tweeted World Cup Teams

Clearly, their run to to finals helped the Netherlands secure the overall top spot as the most trended team during the World Cup, but their epic match with Brazil also helped — many of their mentions came during that game. Portugal, meanwhile, was propelled to the #2 position on the back of their superstar forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who also tops the player list (see below) by a wide margin.

England (#11) just missed making the chart, and host country South Africa finished in 15th place.

Most-Tweeted World Cup Players

Because this list takes into account all players throughout the entire tournament (rather than just those who played last week), superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is once again returned to his rightful spot atop the list. Ronaldo, however, wasn’t the only football player to find himself in the Twitter limelight during the 2010 World Cup; of the 736 players on competing World Cup teams, 21% landed in the trending topics list at least once, including athletes from 29 of the 32 teams competing (only Algeria, Honduras and North Korea did not have a player reach the trending list).

“This is definitely a sign of the global reach of Twitter,” said researcher Liz Pullen, who couldn’t recall ever seeing such a high percentage of players reaching the trending topics list for any other major sports. Yet, if all World Cup countries were tweeting, Brazil was perhaps tweeting loudest (or at least most equitably): 14 of their 23 players hit the trending topics list at some point during the tournament, although they had just on make the final top 10.

Need more social media World Cup coverage? Of course you do! Head on over to Mashable’s World Cup headquarters to find links to all our previous news and resources.

More World Cup resources from Mashable:

- World Cup 2010: Mashable’s Complete Coverage
- The World Cup’s Social Media Evolution
- 5 Free Must-Have World Cup Android Apps
- HOW TO: Follow the 2010 World Cup on Twitter
- Top 6 Free World Cup iPhone Apps

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Jezperklauzen

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