The opening match of the World Cup, between Brazil and Croatia, sparked over 12.2 million tweets from users in over 150 countries.
Unsurprisingly, the most mentioned player during the match was Neymar (@NeymarJr), who picked up 165,000 new followers in the course of one day, or 10 times his daily average. The Brazilian soccer star now has over 11 million Twitter followers in total.
Among the most-shared tweets was one from Belgian player Eden Hazard (@hazardeden) congratulating his friend Oscar on his goal. The message was retweeted over 15,000 times. Fans also took to Twitter to share their photos of the match highlights, whether taken on-site at the Arena Corinthians or at home in front of the TV.
Since June 10, Twitter has brought back the "hashflags" feature, so that tweeting a hashtag and the three-letter code of a competing country prompts the appearance of its flag. The social network will keep tabs on which countries are ahead in the hashflag race throughout the tournament. For now, Brazil is in first place (#BRA), followed by Spain (#ESP).
